Eugene weekly., January 19, 2012, Page 21, Image 21

theater
Love Language
Eugene gets a dose of The Real Thing
Dan Pegoda and
Sarah Papineau in
The Real Thing
“T
ouch me,” the political-
activist actress entreats the
playwright, just after his wife
exits to make a dip for the crudités. These
words set the story spinning like a '60s
love song on old vinyl — something real
and clichéd at once, exploring the delicate,
powerful balance of love.
Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing
is a delicious feast of words, the best
conversation you’ve ever eavesdropped
on. Talky, yes, and if you want helicopters
landing on stage this is not your play. But
Stoppard is so masterful that most people
don’t fuss about the unfolding plot; they
just want to bathe in the language.
Stoppard, whose works include
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
and Travesties, set out to write about love:
real, complicated, grown-up love. Layering
scenes though a series of conversations, he
examines the thoughtless expressions of
care, lust, vanity, hope and self-protection
that surround love.
And in case the complication of
emotional commitment doesn’t feel real
enough, director Fred Gorelick stages
the play in the round — or in the square,
actually. The audience is granted a seat on
the edge of Stoppard’s fi ctional living room
and invited to peer in. Gorelick blocks his
actors like a master chess player, providing
all the voyeuristic pleasure of a round with
none of the annoying sight problems.
Dan Pegoda delivers an enthralling
performance as playwright Henry, a wizard
of words who can coddle, convince or cut
down anyone in his midst. This production
absolutely rests on Pegoda’s shoulders, and
he carries it as easily as a sack of feathers.
The way he breezes through the verbiage
is a pleasure to behold, but look deeper:
Watch for the way his character listens to
others, and listens differently in different
situations. Pegoda’s physical movements
alone can hold an entire conversation while
urbane nonsense pours from his mouth.
This magical performance is well
complimented by the remaining cast.
Sarah Papineau rocks the fabulous role of
Annie, playing not only Henry’s beloved
actress (complicated enough) but also the
characters in his plays. Storm Kennedy also
delivers as Henry’s original wife Charlotte,
the one woman capable of out-wording the
playwright, although his daughter (Shannon
McInally) is working on it. Russell Dyball
is a sweetly naive Max, reacting honestly to
the storms raging around him.
Some of the tertiary characters lack this
same sense of authenticity, and their funny
lines and roles as plot movers inspire a
cartoonish portrayal. Dale Light and Colin
Gray are fi ne actors, and the consistency
in their manner suggests an intentional
conspiracy on the part of the director and
writer. That choice was hard for me to dig,
after so much was done so well.
This carnival of words is set in Britain,
and could have been ruined by the poorly
managed accents Eugene is asked to
tolerate in so many plays. No one here
slacks on the speech, however, and the
clipped British tongue slips so smoothly
you scarcely notice.
A brilliant script, clear direction and
some of the fi nest acting you’ll see in
town, this production is The Real Thing.
— Anna Grace
The Real Thing runs through Feb. 4 at Lord Leebrick
Theatre; lordleebrick.com or 465-1506.
Laura Holden (left), Sophie Mitchell and
Megan Hammon in ACE’s Trailer Park
This Side of the Tracks
All the trailer park’s a stage in ACE’s latest musical
R
aunchy, underdeveloped, oversexed
and aesthetically topsy-turvy,
The Great American Trailer Park
Musical is a piece of sideshow freakery on
the order of John Waters’ Desperate Living.
It’s a prankish mish-mash of attitudes, styles
and music, and — peopled by potty mouths,
crotch scratchers, dick grabbers and slut
buckets — it’s certainly not for the prudes
of political correctness. This show is as off-
color as it is off Broadway.
If your yardstick of tolerance was
defi ned when Divine noshed on a freshly
shat dog turd in Pink Flamingos, you
should have no problem with Actors
Cabaret of Eugene’s The Great American
Trailer Park Musical. This uneven but
ultimately infectious production is at
once defi antly crass and completely
harmless: a comedy of bad manners that
errs just this hitch of mean-spiritedness,
while never quite achieving the zing of
class satire or the emotional ranginess
of romantic comedy. Trailer Park, in
other words, is more Winter’s Boner than
Winter’s Bone, more Poop Floats than
Hope Floats.
Set amid the out-and-proudly poor
denizens of Armadillo Acres, a white-trash
hood of double-wides in Stark, Florida,
this nasty little musical — ably directed
by ACE stalwart Mark Van Beever (Spring
Awakening), from a book by Betsy Kelso
and music/lyrics by David Nehls — is as
loose and baggy as a pair of size-XXL
overalls.
In its own hillbilly fashion, Trailer Park
does fulfi ll the Shakespearean dictates of
comedy, but the thin narrative of betrayal,
awakening and love’s labor lost-and-found
is simply a device for mounting a series of
sketch comedy routines. These episodes
are strung together by music that taps the
vein of second-wave country, from foot-
stomping honky-tonk to the outlaw styles
of Waylon and Willie, with a bit of ‘70s
Motown thrown into the mix.
The songs are uniformly strong and
often hilariously clever. The only quirk is
the volume on stage, which is set far too
low, creating a double-edge sonic snag by
1) being, well, too quiet and, 2) causing the
occasional fl at notes during vocal solos.
Turn it up, ACE!
Trailer Park, as it exists on the page, is
an unholy mess. From scene to scene, and
sometimes even within a single scene, the
show seems uncertain about its intentions:
Parody one moment, social commentary
the next; sexual farce, slapstick, straight-
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up (as opposed to half-mast) romance; a
satire on lipstick (or perhaps “tube-top”)
feminism, class bigotry or — as when
Jeannie (Shannon Coltrane) winks at the
forth wall by announcing, “I think I feel
a dream sequence coming on” — a hoi-
polloi postmodern deconstruction of
cultural clichés and the stereotypes of
poverty.
None of which matters, really, because
ACE, with its cozy, dinner-show setting,
has cornered the local market on creating
intimate, engaging productions that —
even when the subject is heavy — take the
community in community theater seriously.
The goal is to have fun.
And Trailer Park’s strong, dedicated
cast of young actors certainly makes fun
look fun. There’s not the space to note
them all, but a special nod goes out to the
same actor who damn near stole Spring
Awakening, Sophie Mitchell (Pickles) as
well as Coltrane, who plays the agoraphobic
wife of philandering Norbert (Andrew
Gutoski). These two charismatic performers
prove themselves masters of that dying art
called physical comedy. Lucille Ball didn’t
live in a trailer park, but if she had, I bet
she’d have given her “left tit for a dip in the
pool” with these two cut-ups. — Rick Levin
The Great American Trailer Park Musical runs through Feb.
18 at Actors Cabaret, 996 Willamette St.; actorscabaret.org
EUGENE WEEKLY JANUARY 19, 2012 21