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REVIEW -- "Almost an Evening" by Theatre Pops
Published: 7/20/2012 5:11 PM
Last Modified: 7/20/2012 5:11 PM

“Almost an Evening” is a trio of short plays that deal with the ever-perplexing idea of “doing the right thing.” And Theatre Pops gets them almost right.

In welcoming the audience to Thursday’s opening night performance at the Tulsa PAC, Charles Kevin Smith, one of the production’s two directors, joked that presenting “a play about Hell” might seem an odd thing to do during a time of triple-digit temperature.

The thing is, none of these plays is “about” Hell. What links these vignettes together is the ways trying to do what is morally right – following the rules, putting the concerns of others ahead of our own, trying to forge a meaningful connection with someone else – can go hilariously, horrifically wrong.

And while Theatre Pops production has much to commend it, “Almost an Evening” remains – as the show’s title implies – something a little less than the sum of its parts.

The plays are by Ethan Coen, and have flashes of the inky-black absurdist humor, the bizarre twists of plot and even the occasional explosion of shocking violence that characterize the films Coen has made with his brother Joel, from “The Big Lebowski” to “No Country for Old Men.”

In “Waiting,” a man named Nelson (Andy Axewell) finds himself in an unfortunately recognizable limbo – a waiting room with three out of date magazines and a surly receptionist (Tiffany Tusia) who can give him only a few minutes of her attention.

Once Nelson works out that he’s dead, he’s told it’s only a matter of time before he get sent on his way to his final reward. Of course things do not work out as expected – imagine a cross of “Catch-22” and Sartre’s “No Exit,” and you know where this is going.

The final piece, “Debate,” begins with two physical manifestations of the Almighty – the God Who Judges (Dave Garcia), who lays down the universal law as a matter of black and white in language that is more than a little blue, and the God Who Loves (Trey Hammond), whose talk of “reaching out” and finding a higher power who “meets your individual needs” sound like that of any number of trendy preachers.

And again, things don’t end quite the way one expects – as two couples discuss what just happened in ways that mirror the approaches to life espoused by these two “deities.”

“Waiting” and “Debate” are the most effective of the two pieces, in large part because they are the most comic, and directors Smith and Freddie Tate guide their casts through characterizations that are – given the outrageousness of the subject matter and situations – surprisingly understated.

Axewell is very good as a fellow trying to keep boredom, frustration and anger at bay as eternity rolls on, while Tusia gets a lot of comic mileage out of her determinedly oblivious receptionist.

Garcia eschews the bombastic as the God Who Judges, sounding more like a fed-up father dressing down rowdy kids, while Hammond has that New Age spirituality croon down pat. Matt Seiert, Rachel Messner, Liz Masters and Garcia are the bickering couples.

Between these two pieces is “Four Benches,” which is the most problematic of the three.

An English secret agent (Chris Williams) is to meet a contact in a public steambath. When things go wrong and an innocent person dies, he is determined to leave the service, with all its coded conversations and murky motivations, and lead an open authentic life. Yet doing that proves to be trickier than he thinks.

A big part of the problem is the play itself. Compared to the other two, it is disappointingly slight, underdeveloped, a bad joke that takes way too long to get to its lame punchline.

And here, the performances aren’t quite restrained enough. Williams’ earnest agent is in a frenzy of self-doubt from the start, so there’s no real change he experience, no rug is pulled out from him – as happens in the other plays, and as should happen here.

Barry Lenard’s two towel-wrapped Texans aren’t quite the enigmatic, menacing figures they could be, nor is Masters very effective as the spy’s handler. Everyone is trying too hard. The exception is Axewell, as the bereaved father of the victim. His scene with Williams is easily the most effective in this section.

“Almost an Evening” will certainly make you laugh, and may even get you thinking about what it means to do what’s right. But it may also leave you feeling that “almost” doesn’t quite satisfy.

“Almost an Evening” continues with performances at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday in the Norman Theater, Tulsa PAC, 110 E. Second St. It contains strong language and is for mature audiences. For tickets: 918-596-7111, tulsaworld.com/mytix.






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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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