September 3, 2013 | in Rogue's Gallery
September 3, 2013 | in Rogue's Gallery Viva las "Tuna"!, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.
Imprudent as it may seem to turn up the small-town Texas heat at the sweltering height of summer, Williamston Theatre is confidently tripling down on the practice. The company's seventh season closer is also the final installment of what it has dubbed the "Tuna Trilogy": Following on the momentum of 2011's "Greater Tuna" and 2012's "Red, White and Tuna," now the show hits the road in "Tuna Does Vegas" (by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard). Director Quintessa Gallinat takes the helm of the franchise in this installment, which heralds the return of stars Aral Gribble and Wayne David Parker. But against a deliberately kitschy comic premise and the goof-off tendencies of summer, the production is nevertheless operating at full firepower, staying notably high-concept to set off the script's affable low humor.
You know how little kids play-act distillations of favorite movies they barely understand? They skip everything but the best parts, change characters at will, announce things that should be implied, and probably prod and hiss among each other when they’re getting it wrong. Some people look at such a precocious endeavor and see nothing but sweetness and light; the less pure among us see comic gold. If you’re the type who thinks the only things that could further improve such a delectable scenario would be permission to laugh openly and a disturbing preoccupation with genitals, then The Ringwald Theatre’s Mommie Queerest is calling your name.
Playwright Jamie Morris’s gutter-diving romp is inspired by the camp classic Mommie Dearest, a shrieking public excoriation of real-life movie star Joan Crawford based on the furious tell-all book by her adopted daughter Christina. The film, in particular its lead performance by Faye Dunaway, aims for deadly seriousness, but overshoots so far that it all but satirizes itself. Thus, left with no room to heighten, director Dyan Bailey piles the comic layers and filthy inferences high, in a winning bid to effectively shoot the moon.