Aunt Pearl Burras (Joe Sears) finds herself in Las Vegas with Maurice (Jaston Williams) in "Tuna Does Vegas." The two actors play many roles in the production.

The costumes upstage the actors in the new adventures of those eccentric rednecks from Tuna, Texas, the state’s third-smallest community.

Not that the actors in “Tuna Does Vegas” are bad. Far from it. But the costume designs are even more hilarious in this nationally touring production presented by Broadway in Tucson.

Jaston Williams and Joe Sears are onstage playing all the characters, just as they always have since first creating “Greater Tuna” back in 1981 with Ed Howard, who is also the director.

This triumvirate then created “A Tuna Christmas” in 1989, which went on to enjoy a successful holiday run on Broadway in 1995. That triumph was followed by “Red, White and Tuna” in 1998. While all three plays have become popular moneymakers in regional theater, Williams and Sears still like to go on tour now and then to show the rest of the country how it’s done.

On the opening night of their most current production, “Tuna Does Vegas” at the downtown Fox Theatre, Williams and Sears were up there once more giving life to Arles Struvie, Bertha Bumiller, Petey Fisk, Vera Carp, Didi Snavely and all the others.

Lifetime fans – shall we call them the Tuna Nation – will be happy to learn a few more characters have been added who are uniquely Las Vegas. Which brings us back to those fabulously vivid get-ups designed by Linda Fisher. For openers, Bertha makes her entrance wearing a lime green vest over a shocking pink blouse, with pink and green flowered slacks contrasting nicely with her helmet hair.

Aunt Pearl Burras spins the chaotic color wheel even faster when she walks out wearing a dress that looks to be designed by Omar the tent maker. Scarcely more than a muumuu, it is covered in a busy print flaunting flowers with red, yellow, green and blue petals. To this she adds a little lime green hat adorned with more plastic flowers and fruit, plus a sturdy pair of black shoes with squatty, comfortable heels.

You get the idea. But while the women dress like peacocks on a suicide mission, the loudest and most spontaneous applause broke out when the Vegas hotel elevator doors opened to reveal a gargantuan Elvis impersonator. To say that he is larger than life doesn’t even begin to be large enough.

Plotwise, the story opens early one morning at radio station OKKK where Arles and Thurston Wheelis are still doing the farm reports and playing vintage country music from the 1950s. Arles and Bertha have been married so long they want to fluff up their love life by renewing their vows with a second honeymoon in Las Vegas. After Arles innocently mentions this on the air, all the Tuna townsfolk suddenly find reasons for a Vegas visit, too.

It takes all of Act 1 before we have been reintroduced, as well, to the station owner Leonard Childers, the waitresses Inita and Helen, hapless little theater director Joe Bob Lipsey and the gun-loving Didi, who runs Tuna’s only secondhand gun store. Just before intermission, all of them are heading for their rooms in the low-rent Hula Chateaux Resort and Spa.

When they return for Act 2, the seductive side of Sin City begins to warp some of the more rigid among Tuna’s traveling townsfolk. Those less committed to maintaining their morals find opportunities for self-expression are beginning to blossom.

The humor gets a little edgy from time to time. There’s a good bit of drinking, some profanity, a doobie is smoked, raunchy winks about sex are bandied about. Not that anything is R-rated, but it still seems a bit surprising for a family show. Several politically incorrect jokes about Mexico were greeted with more gasps than laughter. Other parts of the country probably don’t feel as sensitive about border issues.

Even so, Williams and Sears got a standing ovation. Their comedy may be getting a little dated, their politics stuck in the 1980s, but on opening night, nobody cared.

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IF YOU GO

What: Broadway in Tucson presents “Tuna Does Vegas” performed by Jaston Williams and Joe Sears

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress St.

Price: $25-$50

Info: 903-2929, www.broadwayintucson.com

Grade: B-

A teenage boy (Christopher Johnson) moves in with his estranged father and meets his new family, including two teen foster children (Marina Jarrette, left, and Allegra Breedlove).

The irony is intense in Live Theatre Workshop’s gripping production of “Lemon Sky,” a play that seems more prescient now than when Lanford Wilson wrote it in 1970. Glen Coffman as director gives all the nuance a razor’s edge.

These days, we believe without exception: that inside every obedient housewife there was a stunted female screaming to get out; that every teenager of the early 1960s was a ticking time bomb of rebellion; and every authoritarian middle-aged white father who thought he knew best was about to be told differently.

Not that society is any better off today. It just seems like the cultural pressure cooker of conservative values in the 1950s was hissing and shaking, making so much noise we should have known the big blow was coming.

Sort of like how we should have known last year that the economy was going to collapse this year.

The first act of “Lemon Sky” sets up the scene, re-creating a happily positive thinking, Norman Vincent Peale-reading, Dr. George W. Crane-believing, Dale Carnegie-inspired 1950s suburban family in southern California riding the crest of a booming postwar economy.

Subdivisions were filling up the farm land just outside San Diego. Everybody lived in a new house. Americans were winners and the whole world knew it.

But even in Act 1, cracks were beginning to appear in this smiley-face facade. Now that the world was made safe for democracy, everyone wanted more freedom.

So divorce was becoming more common. A lot of those second-marriage families were setting up housekeeping out in the freshly minted ‘burbs.

Christopher Johnson with a shiny 1950s haircut and a nice touch of innocence plays 17-year-old Alan, who occasionally steps outside the scene to tell the audience about his dad, Doug, getting a new wife in Nebraska and moving to one of those tract homes near San Diego.

As the play set in 1959 opens, Alan hasn’t seen his dad for 12 years, but is moving in to stay. Doug (Roger Owen) and Doug’s new wife, Ronnie (Kristi Loera), are a bubbly couple with two young boys, Jack (Ryan Callie) and Jerry (Cole Gregory). The family has also taken in two teen foster children, Carol (Allegra Breedlove) and Penny (Marina Jarrette).

Carol is a flirty 17-year-old, either promiscuous or adventurous, depending on your personal values. She also pops a lot of pills for her anxiety.

Penny is a few years younger, and holds the honored family place as Daddy’s darling. He is teaching Penny all about photography, the science of developing film and the art of making prints.

As Doug, this is Owen’s strongest performance yet. Tall and broad-shouldered, he portrays the disciplined father as a positive guy who believes in a hard-line approach. These days, he would be applauded for his military insistence on law and order.

Owen does a fascinating job depicting the collapse of a man committed to this rigid way of life, even as human nature wins the struggle to maintain all those idealistic values.

Loera also displays a finer appreciation for subtle expressions. We see her outside appearance as the proper housewife who dresses extra-nice to fix dinner while waiting for Doug to get home from work.

But we can also feel her frustration at being helpless to deflect the train wreck momentum of Doug’s life. As with any train wreck, most of the casualties are innocent bystanders.

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IF YOU GO

What: Live Theatre Workshop presents “Lemon Sky” by Lanford Wilson

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays through May 31

Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $14-$17

Info: 327-4242, livetheatreworkshop.org

Grade: A

Brian Hanson and Tristyn Tucci play 20-somethings who have a hard time connecting with like-minded spirits in "I'm Sorry I Liked You."

The poignancy is palpable in “I’m Sorry I Liked You” written by Brian Hanson, who also plays the main guy.

In the late night production that opened last weekend at Beowulf Alley Theatre, Hanson is helped out by seven of his friends. Joshua Parra directed the whole thing, which looks and feels exactly like it is supposed to – people in their early 20s with no idea how to find and connect with any like-minded spirits out there.

For one thing, they aren’t even sure about the nature of their own spirits, so how can they hope to find any like-minded ones?

Hanson uses a series of conversational scenes set in casual places. There is no plot, per se, just this gradual deepening of frustration over always being misunderstood. Hanson’s self-named character Brian is the focus of this runaway storm. But all the characters have problems. Many have tried the escape route of recreational drugs.

So has Brian.

He is the stereotypical loser. A skinny kid in a loose-fitting black T-shirt and blue jeans who has spent so many years in public school sitting at the back of the class, drawing pictures in his notebook, that he’s become a pretty good cartoonist. In the opening scenes of the play, his sketch pad is always handy. It becomes an important means of communication for him.

Getting his ideas across has never been easy for Brian. Way too smart for his own good, completely lacking in social skills and having absolutely no interest in sports, Brian is still optimistic enough to believe life would be all right (or at least endurable) if he could just meet the right girl.

Or any girl, really. The more desperate he gets, the less particular he becomes.

At a time in our cultural history when self-image is being shaped mainly by the way people act on TV and in video games, guys like Brian are really out of luck. They don’t get any positive images, not even in all those slacker flicks.

Did you see “Adventureland,” the currently reigning movie for losers? The main loser becomes a winner at the end, of course, but the main loser’s buddy is sardonic Joel (Martin Starr), an even bigger loser. Joel majored in Slavic studies and defiantly smokes the kind of pipe we associate with old men. He also has a keen eye for the real world’s inequities. Bitter and cynical, he is the misfit who discovered in second grade that being smarter than all the other kids would never make him popular. At the end of “Adventureland,” Joel is still by himself, sucking on that pipe.

That is Brian, too, sucking in more emptiness with every breath, absorbed in the certainty that the only thing he is really good at is being a loser.

Brian’s friends in the play may not be quite that depressed, but neither are they living large. Ryan (Marcus Palm) is an energetic, lonely guy throwing himself into the gore of zombie movies. He thrives on them, running fast and never looking back.

Lana (Tristyn Tucci) is looking for love on the lesbian landscape, though she isn’t finding that much happiness. Stacy (Mindi Watts) has a chance to cross over into the social circles of successful people, but she can’t quite cut the cord on her friends from childhood who turned out to be less successful once they passed through the looking glass of adolescence.

What makes “I’m Sorry I Liked You” special is the dialogue. Hanson’s future is as a playwright. Although the language he gives these characters is filled with profanity, it also contains masterful psychology. Whether he is writing with a gift for intuition or the wisdom of masterful insight, Hanson nails it.

“I’m Sorry I Liked You” is more than a slacker’s memories set on stage. There is real life here, and for parents who want to look deeper, there are clues to what makes their children tick.

The other cast members are Ashley Kahaat, Antonio Ross, Evan Engle and Clinton Grozdanich.

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IF YOU GO

What: Late Night Theatre at Beowulf Alley presents “I’m Sorry I Liked You” by Brian Hanson

When: 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Where: Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave.

Price: $8

Info: 882-0555, www.beowulfalley.org

Grade: B

The best thing about adult fairy tales is the same thing as regular fairy tales. You can enjoy them over and over, and never get tired.

One of the most tuneful of these is “Mamma Mia!” – a show that has become as enduring as “Cats.”

“And why is that?” you may ask. On the opening night of “Mamma Mia!” at the Tucson Music Hall, one reason could be the national touring company’s stage fantasy of life on a Greek Island. Or the chance to look back nostalgically to 1979 when youth got the best of reason.

Or the conviction that a good memory deserves lots of bright colors, bouncy dancing and mock-acting with piles of hammy gestures.

Although all the songs are those totally irresistible, bass line-driven disco ballads by ABBA, one of the clues about the audience for this show is in the laughter when Sophie talks about 1979 as “the olden days.”

Such nostalgic time jokes keep slipping into the dialogue between songs, although most of the show is the songs themselves. And nobody goes to an ABBA concert expecting the muscle of the Rolling Stones or the depth of Leonard Cohen.

ABBA is closer to those surf and sports car songs of the Beach Boys.

“Mamma Mia!” wants to be cross-generational – feeling good about the past for one generation, and facing the future with a sunny smile for the new generation. If things can turn out well for Donna, who is happy for daughter Sophie, who is getting married to a nice young man, then there is still a chance for anyone who might have regrets about being too impetuous.

If “Mamma Mia!” has a secret to its enduring popularity, this must be it. Aside from celebrating the songs of ABBA, this show with its book by Catherine Johnson celebrates the sanctity of marriage. But even more than that, young Sophie insists not only on getting married but on setting her mom straight by discovering the identity of Sophie’s father.

Since she makes the biological lineage important, instead of just throwing up her hands with a hazy smile toward the fickle finger of fate, “Mamma Mia!” plants itself firmly in the conservative camp of tradition.

Meanwhile on the surface, a cast of 30 bright-faced young performers keep jumping around on a stage full of goofy costumes splashed with cascading colors that pump up their enthusiasm. The message is that we may be crazy on the outside, with all these frothy songs full of adolescent yearning, but deep down inside we want the stability of family values.

The cast in this particular production is equally balanced. There aren’t any stars of the future, no sparkling performers who have that “it” quality, but all are solid talents who keep the performance running smoothly at a very satisfying level.

Michelle Dawson as Donna, the mom, doesn’t look that much older than Liana Hunt, who plays Sophie, the daughter. But it doesn’t take much suspension of disbelief once Dawson starts to sing. Her big show-stopping finale in “The Winner Takes It All” is the show’s emotional peak.

Also good is John Hemphill as Sam, the regular guy whose dream is to settle down with his happy family in a home of his own design.

Sam’s big numbers are “S.O.S.,” and the more tender “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Adding comedy relief is Rachel Tyler as sophisticated Tanya doing the older woman-younger man thing with Pepper (Adam Michael Kaokept) singing “Does Your Mother Know.”

By the time this eager cast got to sing the title tune, “Mamma Mia!,” the audience had turned the evening into a Broadway musical singalong.

———

IF YOU GO

What: The national tour of “Mamma Mia!”

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave.

Price: $25-$69, discounts for seniors and military personnel

Info: 903-2929, www.broadwayintucson.com

Grade: B

Tarreyn Van Slyke (from left), Joe Cooper, Deborah Klingenfus and Sarah Vanek star in "Harlie's Angels."

Are you ready for the 1970s? This time around, The Gaslight Theatre gang has given their time machine a little extra tug to get past the 1950s and into the TV wonderland of “Harlie’s Angels, or Clues But No Cigar!”

The 1970s were a decade of shameless excess and fashion extremes that held no fear of bad taste. We’ve got the videotape to prove it. The research staff at the Gaslight, ever relentless in its search for the truth, has dug up period details that will inspire a nostalgic smile from anyone still able to remember that psychedelic decade.

Samantha, Jessie and Kimberly are the three drop-dead beautiful angels who work for Harlie’s detective agency. In the finest feminist traditions of that period, they can outshoot, outfight and outsmart any guy. Fortunately for the rest of us, these angels aim only their talents at the bad persons.

Since all Gaslight shows are double cast, the roles become more important than the actors. At the performance I attended, Sarah Vanek, Deborah Klingenfus and Tarreyn Van Slyke play the angels Samantha, Jessie and Kimberly, respectively.

The unseen Harlie is heard onstage, but his voice gets no credit line in the program. The closest we get is Beasley (Joe Cooper), the dapper dude who works for Harlie and gives the girls – oops, women – their assignments. Beasley sort of watches over them, too, but just in an administrative way. Not in a sexist “I’ll protect you, baby” way that would be sooo wrong.

This was the Seventies, after all, when the pounding bass beat of disco had pushed those airhead folk singers in their Birkenstocks and blue jeans right out of the pop culture spotlight. Anybody who wanted to save the whales would have to do it after hours on their own time.

Stepping up to be a hero is Flavio Suave (Todd Thompson), the international disco superstar who never met a female he couldn’t charm out of her entire wardrobe. That is, until he met Harlie’s Angels.

OK . . . well . . . as longtime fans of the Gaslight are fully aware, a meaningful plot is never expected. So don’t expect the story line to make much sense, either.

There are four Soviet-like characters – the head of the Slobovian Secret Services (David Orley), a member of the Slobovian Central Intelligence Committee (Nancy LaViola), plus the two wild and crazy guys, Serge Piroshki (Mike Yarema) and Yerge Piroshki (Charlie Hall) – who are convinced the power that rules the world of disco can rule the world.

They will come to America, dominate the disco scene and rise to world domination. But first, they must put themselves into the Discosizer. Wearing drab Soviet-style uniforms they step into the whirring, smoking, flashing device. More stage effects stimulate the Discosizer and . . . viola!

The government Slobovians step out transformed into devilish disco dilettantes, one in bright orange pants, another in deep purple. That wild and crazy commissar even gets to wear a red velvet jacket and flaunt his massive blond afro. Within seconds they are all singing about a “Brick House” or something.

So the Slobovians’ plan to destroy the totally awesome new discotheque that Flavio in his ankle-length orange fur coat plans to open. Harlie’s Angels, always fluffing up their fabulous hair, are assigned to protect Flavio and stop the Slobovians.

You can be sure, bright colors in vigorously clashing styles will prevail.

The Gaslight’s aftershow olio is called “Hurray for Hollywood,” but the absolute best part is a lengthy salute to “The Wizard of Oz.” This 15-minute segment alone is practically worth the price of admission. Alas, the players present only the first half of the story – getting Dorothy and her three pals into the Emerald City. We get no flying monkeys, dissolving wicked witch or little man behind the curtain.

Everyone should demand Gaslight management put up the money to produce the rest of the story (as the late Paul Harvey would say). Then they can start working on a Gaslight version of “Gone With The Wind.”

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IF YOU GO

What: The Gaslight Theatre presents “Harlie’s Angels or Clues But No Cigar!”

When: various times Tuesdays through Sundays through June 13

Where: The Gaslight Theatre, 7010 E. Broadway

Price: $17.95 adults, $15.95 seniors, $7.95 ages 12 and younger

Info: 886-9428, www.thegaslighttheatre.com

Grade: B

Jonathan Northover (from left), Roberto Guajardo and Jill Baker star in Beowulf Alley Theatre Company's production of "Proof."

As someone who stopped taking math classes after the first year of high school algebra, it is impossible to imagine what an “elegant proof” looks like. Is it the opposite of a sloppy proof, full of contradictions, numbers squirting outside the lines?

Making the invisible visible is a seductive fascination with David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize winning play “Proof.” Successful on the screen as well as onstage, this piece of thought-provoking theater receives a fine local production directed by Sheldon Metz at Beowulf Alley Theatre.

All the characters talk about math as if it is some unexplored land in an unseen world. Apparently, there is a considerable amount of math terrain still to be discovered.

Self-proclaimed math geeks are working day and night pouring over old formulas like ancient maps of forgotten lands. Meticulously, they go about rearranging baskets of numbers into new configurations hoping to find newer answers.

Making brilliant discoveries in math is the obsessive pursuit of every math graduate, convinced there’s nothing more pitiful than an old genius (like, say, 35 years old) who hasn’t staked a claim somewhere on this intellectual terra incognita.

It is the consuming pressure to discover something, anything – as long as mathematics is connected to it – that drives “Proof.” That, and the invisibility of the proof itself.

Auburn sees layers of possibility in this maze of mirrored ethics, where the reflection of something is the opposite of the original – yet both can look equally valid until someone starts slinging the arcane knowledge around until something breaks. Human nature, being equally invisible but infinitely more unpredictable, becomes the X-factor that defies every proof.

Metz keeps the play’s lines of communication as sleek and neat as one of those elegant formulas they talk about incessantly. All four actors move smoothly, making their stage personalities distinct, their thoughts clear. The tables of numbers they love may be multiplying themselves into infinity, but the actors keep their feet firmly planted onstage.

Jill Baker plays Catherine, a woman in her latter 20s who loves her genius father but also feels intimidated by his genius. She would like to be a brilliant mathematician, too, but she lacks the courage. All indications are she could be a genius if she would only apply her natural talent. But depression grips Catherine’s spirit.

She dropped out of college, spent six years caring for her mentally ill father. Now he has passed away. Her excuse to avoid life is gone.

Baker creates this person with a fine use of understatement. Her body language is drawn in, her voice subdued. Yet, we always know exactly what she’s feeling.

In the smaller but pivotal role of Robert is Roberto Guajardo. He plays the ailing genius who is Catherine’s beloved father. At the age of 23, Robert made a magnificent discovery of some important math landscape. But Robert hasn’t discovered anything since, though he has continued teaching at the University of Chicago.

Now time and stress have disintegrated his thought processes. But still he dreams of making one more age-defying breakthrough. Catherine has been helping him, and he has been encouraging her.

Into this relationship steps Hal, played by Jonathan Northover, a Tucson actor of British nationality who comes up with a remarkably natural American accent. Hal is the idealistic graduate assistant at Chicago U. who believes in Robert’s mental prowess. While going through Robert’s piles of notebook compilations, Hal searches for that masterful insight Robert always wanted.

Chris Farishon completes the cast as Claire. She is Catherine’s good sister – the one who studied hard, always did what she was told and now has a successful career as a financial analyst in New York.

Of course, Catherine hates her. Robert applauds Claire’s achievements but the one he loves more is Catherine, which Claire deeply resents.

So when it seems Catherine might have pulled out of her depression long enough to plant the flag of discovery on her own piece of the math world, Claire demands some definite proof.

———

IF YOU GO

What: Beowulf Alley Theatre Company presents “Proof” by David Auburn

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Sundays through April 26

Where: Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave.

Price: $20 all tickets, discounts online

Info: 882-0555, www.beowulfalley.org

Grade: A

Hershey Felder stars in "Beethoven: As I Knew Him."

Members of the MTV generation will be calling Arizona Theatre Company’s new production “Beethoven Unplugged,” even though the official title is “Beethoven, As I Knew Him.”

Written and performed as a one-man show by actor/concert pianist Hershey Felder, the musical selections emphasize the composer’s genius for power ballads. Not to mix too many music metaphors here, but Beethoven is best known for composing magnificent symphonies.

Felder has pared away all the tuxedoed pomp of a proper European concert hall, the imposing sight of 80 musicians playing all sizes of bowed instruments, and replaced them with . . . himself and a grand piano in a simple setting with a few pieces of studio furniture. Behind him is a backdrop resembling a story book. From time to time, illustrations that look like etchings are projected on the larger-than-lifesize pages.

Everything is black, with minimal stage lighting, which adds a certain formality to the atmosphere. The playwright does enhance the scene with some recorded orchestral excerpts in a sound design by Erik Carstensen. Unfortunately the theater’s sound system wasn’t equal to the challenge. There was no rich resonance to this recording. It came out thin, with distortion around the edges.

The ideal setting would be Felder with a full symphony orchestra. As an instrument for humanizing the great artist, “Beethoven, As I Knew Him” works its magic. Just like you can hear the tunes better in those “Unplugged” TV programs, Felder brings out the angelic moments in Beethoven’s music.

Instead of soaring through the heavens on the wings of 30 violins, Felder draws us past the Pearly Gates and into God’s own darkened living room where Beethoven has been playing every evening for a couple of hundred years.

Do they serve after-dinner drinks in Heaven? If they do, this would be the perfect place.

For narration, Felder has drawn on the writing of Dr. Gerhard von Breuning, whose father was one of Beethoven’s most loyal friends. Gerhard was 12 years old when he first met the composer. For the next couple of years he would spend time with Beethoven nearly every day.

His stories become Felder’s stories, told with a pronounced German accent. Always understanding what he’s saying isn’t easy. This does detract from the performance, though it doesn’t get in the way of the music. Still, a simpler accent would be appreciated.

We do get that Beethoven lived a difficult, unhappy life and was a terrible housekeeper. As a boy he was abused by his father. The composer’s cruel deafness in later life could have been caused by those childhood times when the father beat his son about the head.

“Beethoven, As I Knew Him” is presented without an intermission, running nearly two hours. Felder adds a coda, as he calls it, stepping away from the piano to answer questions from the audience.

So, dream up a good question during the performance and be one of the first to get called on afterward, just to get the audience participation started. On opening night it took Felder awhile before the questions were flowing.

My favorite question from the audience: “If Mozart had lived longer, how would his presence have affected Beethoven’s composing?”

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IF YOU GO

What: Arizona Theatre Company presents “Beethoven, As I Knew Him,” written and performed by Hershey Felder

When: various times Tuesdays through Sundays through April 27

Where: Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.

Price: $31-$54

Info: 622-2823, aztheatreco.org

Hershey Felder will appear as himself in a special six-performance concert series April 30-May 3 in the Temple of Music and Art, presenting “The American Songbook Sing-Along.” For details, aztheatreco.org.

Grade: B

Live Theatre Workshop’s “I Wrote This Play To Make You Love Me”

Amanda Gremel and Christopher Johnson star in "I Wrote This Play to Make You Love Me."

They are the people we never see. The single travelers with their elaborate black leather brief cases. The people who sit by themselves on airplanes, keeping an eye on their wristwatches and always looking bored.

Or else we see them riding in buses with musical instruments tucked under their seats, munching on old food, being terminally hip.

Or maybe just schlepping from town to town with big make-up cases and a couple of changes in theater clothes. They are the actors, riding on their imagination, truly believing they are just one dramatic role away from becoming shiny celebrities.

They are the travelers, the disconnected who judge each town by the quality of its restaurant waiters and hotel staffs. They are the unencumbered souls who fill Anne Thibault’s “I Wrote This Play To Make You Love Me.”

That is, all the characters but one. She is the marginally successful actress Lysette, played with an incredible innocence by soft-voiced Amanda Gremel in the late night production by Etcetera at Live Theatre Workshop. Lysette can be describing the most incredibly horrific sexual misadventure while maintaining an open-minded sweetness that feels absolutely genuine. Which makes the horrible parts even more so.

She not only depends on the kindness of strangers, she depends on the kindness of sick perverts with voracious appetites. Sharks of immorality who must keep committing more immoral acts just to stay alive.

In the course of this 90-minute one-act Lysette meets them all. She doesn’t want to meet them. She doesn’t seek them out. She would prefer to stay in her hotel room, learning her lines to be in Ibsen’s equally bleak “A Doll’s House.” But she meets them anyway.

The construction of Thibault’s play doesn’t invite the audience in, however. This is basically Gremel providing a recitation of Lysette’s unfortunate social life as she keeps traveling in pursuit of work, hanging out with equally transient punk rockers along the way and hating those sandal-wearing hippie vegetarians in Vermont who keep protesting the construction of more cell phone microwave towers.

Which is why she can never get a decent cell phone connection.

There is a stream of consciousness feeling to this dutiful remembrance of her lost loves, disgusting loves and the numbing sorrow of always having to settle, not for Mr. Right, but for Mr. Right Now.

Occasionally her resigned ruminations are augmented by off-stage comments from Christopher Johnson. His disembodied voice floats unseen, sort of like the voice of conscience that couldn’t care less about anyone’s true feelings.

Occasionally, Johnson jumps onstage to play a variety of unsavory characters who pop in and out of Lysette’s directionless life. There is never any arc to her journey, no moment when she must risk everything to save her own soul from this limbo of pop culture vultures feeding on the spiritually dead.

Johnson is also the director, carefully guiding Gremel’s revelations of personality. Without calling on any vein-bulging theatrics, eschewing the usual mannerisms of damsels in mental distress, Gremel does create a convincing portrait of a young person who wants to believe wearing the right clothes and loving the right music will make her more valuable in the eyes of others.

Such poignancy is irresistible. While the structure of the play keeps Gremel from any blossoming insight, anyone who has traveled these same midnight roads through such tortured landscapes will love her stories.

———

IF YOU GO

What: Etcetera presents “I Wrote This Play To Make You Love Me” by Anne Thibault

When: 10:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through April 18

Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $10

Info: 481-1449, www.livetheatreworkshop.org

Grade: B+

Shakespeare's female characters get to further pursue their dreams in "Immortal Longings."

Revisionist literature? Well, sure, why not? Joseph McGrath the founding artistic director of The Rogue Theatre decided to start moving around some of Shakespeare’s most famous ladies, exploring their possible needs as people living outside the pages of their famous stories.

Titling the work “Immortal Longings,” he begins imagining how Juliet (Dallas Thomas) would have enjoyed getting to know Romeo a little better. From here, he creates an entire society of literary ladies fulfilling their dreams.

It’s a little bit like journalists wondering what it would be like to live in an enlightened culture where the role of journalism was revered; where those who served as watchdogs to guard the public’s interests were considered valued members of society.

McGrath so immersed himself in the possibilities, he even caught the longer rhythms and elaborate sentence structure of Shakespeare’s time. It must have been a bit like speaking in tongues, letting the spirit take him over as angry Kate (Alida Holguin Gunn), cold-blooded Lady Macbeth (Cynthia Meier), gender-bending Viola (Holly-Marie Carlson), airy Ophelia (Laine Peterson), stately Portia (Lesley Abrams), quick-tongued Beatrice (Avis Judd), witty Rosalind (Chelsea Bowdren), queenly Cleopatra (Susan Arnold) and the most unfortunate Desdemona (Maxine Gillespie) joined Juliet to air their differences with the Bard.

Viola and Rosalind, given their Shakespearian conception as women pretending to be men, continue this dual purposing of gender to help facilitate the play’s structure. There isn’t a plot, exactly, but a trial. In the opening scene, Juliet interrupts her own death scene to complain she is tired of dying. After centuries of frustration, she wants to live!

Portia steps forward to be the judge, appointing Viola and Rosalind – both attired in manly garb – to be the judge’s attendants. The other prominent women who sprung from Shakespeare’s pen would step forward to testify both for and against Juliet’s request. In a most judicial voice Portia calls to order a court she describes as “a gathering of queens, cross-dressers, murderers and shrews.”

To keep audience members brushed up on their Shakespeare, each woman gets to enact one famous scene from her own story. Viola and Rosalind, dressed for their “trouser roles,” play whatever men are needed for the appropriate accompaniment.

Then the ladies each make a speech defending her position on Juliet’s plea to live a little longer. Thomas, as the star-crossed teen holding a bottle of poison, is impressive stepping out of Juliet’s traditional personality but staying in character to ask for a better deal than fate has handed her.

Juliet’s main opposition comes from an imposing Meier, dominant in her red gown and gold crown as Lady Macbeth. Snuffing out any hopes Juliet had to make her case, Lady M’s smothering accusations give Juliet fits.

“Have you no mercy,” the girl finally cries out in frustration.

“Have you read my play?” snaps Lady Macbeth, getting a big laugh.

But it is Ophelia, providing the comedy relief, who makes the strongest impression. Peterson steals her every scene, playing Ophelia in a long, white, ghostly dress with trailing strands of seaweed and water plants wrapped around her neck.

Completely mad, yet glowing with a guileless innocence, she charms everyone with her simple-minded manner. At times, her stage image is also strangely reminiscent of Stevie Nicks during her rock ‘n’ roll days with Fleetwood Mac. A rather fascinating interpretation, when you think about it.

As for the resolution, well that is the whole point of this play, isn’t it. McGrath is clever enough to sidestep any strident ending. Wisdom will make its own points.

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IF YOU GO

What: The Rogue Theatre presents the world première of “Immortal Longings” by Joseph McGrath

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, to April 5; preshow Elizabethan music 15 minutes before each curtain

Where: Zuzi’s Dance Theatre, 738 N. Fifth Ave.

Price: $20 general admission; pay-what-you-will Thursday and April 2

Info: 551-2053, www.theroguetheatre.org

grade: B

Laine Peterson and Nic Adams star in "This Property is Condemned."

The economy wasn’t the only casualty in the Great Depression. Society’s collapsing middle class pushed whole families into moral ruin. We are reminded of this collateral damage forgotten by historians in Tennessee Williams’ famous one-act “This Property Is Condemned.”

The play, running less than 25 minutes with only two characters, is a production of The Now Theatre, presented in the Rogue After Curfew series.

Tom, a 16-year-old boy, is played by Nic Adams (who is also the director). Opposite him is Laine Peterson as Willie, a 13-year-old girl who lives by herself in an empty boarding house.

Their conversation is the play.

Sydney Pollack directed the 1966 film adaptation starring Natalie Wood and Robert Redford. The play is nothing like the movie, expanded by 12 screenwriters to be the story of Willie’s wayward, undisciplined older sister who, at 16, actively entertained the many railroad men who stayed at a boarding house run by her mother.

In this vastly expanded (some would say distorted) film adaptation there is scarcely any place for Willie and Tom. Needless to say, Williams hated the screen version. He hated nearly every picture made from any of his plays.

What Williams loved about the one-act play “This Property Is Condemned” is his creation of Willie, a girl who “laughs frequently and wildly and with a sort of precocious, tragic abandon.” On its surface, the play is simple – just two kids sittin’ around talkin’.

For fans of Williams’ work, though, this production is a must-see. Because the two characters are so young, and because the girl has no interest in moral behavior, performances of the piece are rare. Both actors are in their 20s, but do manage to capture a sense of what touched Williams most – a 13-year-old’s bravery facing a world of rough men making cruel demands on her innocence.

These days, we think of those news stories describing sex safaris to third world countries where wealthy Americans enjoy the favors of children barely old enough to be sexually active. We act indignant, insisting such horrible things could never happen here.

Yet Williams lays it out plainly enough. As money slips away from families with no marketable skills in hard financial times, sex becomes a valuable commodity. Although the play is set near an isolated tank town along the railroad tracks in rural Mississippi, it could happen anywhere.

In writing Willie’s casual chatter the playwright slowly reveals Willie’s poignant plight, as if the girl has no idea what the implications are in what she is saying. Peterson lets her body language add the adjectives indicating fear covered by bravado.

Tom, in his own frightened curiosity about sex, learned earlier of Willie’s life and her older sister’s reputation with the railroad men. Tom heard that Willie danced naked once for one of the men.

Willie dances around that subject, too, then nervously admits it. Tom eagerly asks if she would dance for him, but Willie cuts Tom short. She only wants to talk to experienced men with good jobs. Peterson delivers that line with such directness that only later does the shocking impact of its implication begin to sink in.

This is a girl who has grown up watching her older sister dine regularly on forbidden fruit. Then her sister died of pneumonia. We can feel in Peterson’s acting the uncertainty of Willie’s pride, how the girl instinctively knows this forbidden fruit will be the only nutrition she can get.

Photo by Duane Dugas, courtesy of Nic Adams

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IF YOU GO

What: The Now Theatre presents “This Property Is Condemned” by Tennessee Williams

When: 10 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays, except the March 29 performance immediately after The Rogue Theatre’s 2 p.m. presentation of “Immortal Longings”

Where: Zuzi’s Theatre, 738 N. Fifth Ave.

Price: $10 general admission, $5 with a ticket to see “Immortal Longings”

Info: 949-547-6067, www.theroguetheatre.org

Grade: A

Eric Anson and Jodi Henderson are among the 12 cast members in Live Theatre Workshop's production of "Inspecting Carol."

Comedy can be a fickle mistress. Sometimes the laughter pours out, other times the silence after a punch line or pratfall is deadly.

For the performers it’s even worse. Timing is everything, of course. But when several actors are onstage together, one person can send the whole scene careening into chaos. That person’s erratic line bumps into the next person, whose moment gets rushed, lurching into the next person after that – and pretty soon the whole stage is a train wreck of good intentions.

Arms and legs stick out in awkward positions, strange noises escape at odd times. Bodies pile up. And in the back of the audience a bunch of people are laughing like crazy.

But is it funny? Is it comedy? Or is it just people laughing?

Live Theatre Workshop has cooked up its production of a backstage comedy, “Inspecting Carol,” directed by Leslie J. Miller, that feels like a four-lane pile-up. Actors are flying in all directions, punch lines get flattened out and zippy language turns into noise.

Yet, at the performance I attended people were laughing as they left the theater convinced it was a really funny show.

Humor, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

“Inspecting Carol” is credited to Daniel Sullivan and the Seattle Repertory Theatre. That awkward title refers to Charles Dickens’ holiday evergreen “A Christmas Carol.”

Combining elements of the insider stage comedy “Noises Off” and the movie satirizing community theater, “Waiting For Guffman,” this comedy is less than either one.

Instead of cleverness we get slapstick. Instead of insight we get more slapstick. Miller is fully committed to the silliness. If the play calls for someone to fall, she’ll have the person fall, roll around and knock over some furniture. All the acting is performed in caricature, giving everything a cartoonish over-the-top quality that gets its laughs at the expense of showing any humanity. These are not warmhearted eccentrics trying their best to overcome a difficult situation. They are talented actors trying to imitate life inside a blender full of fruitcake.

A cast of 12 complicates the confusion with its size. There isn’t a main personality or two traveling an emotional arc to some satisfactory resolution. The show itself doesn’t have much of an arc.

There is the usual motley collection of misfits hoping to find some relief from their own disappointing lives by taking part in an annual production of “A Christmas Carol.” Missie Scheffman plays the statuesque beauty Zorah Bloch, determined to run her own little theater company since she didn’t get to become a Hollywood movie star. You just know she’ll be having a personality meltdown before everyone turns out the stage lights and goes home for the night.

Jodie Rankin gets her laughs as the bored and cynical stage manager M.J. McMann. She performs the role of ringmaster in this circus of fools, ready to duck for cover whenever those highly combustible egos start bouncing off each other.

There’s not much of Scrooge’s familiar journey in “Inspecting Carol,” either. Along with a part of the old gentleman’s happy conversion, we get glimpses of Jacob Morley, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts in frightful costumes and Bob Cratchit hoping he won’t get fired. But mostly we get to watch people spin out of control, crash and burn.

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IF YOU GO

What: Live Theatre Workshop presents “Inspecting Carol” by Daniel Sullivan and the Seattle Repertory Theatre

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays through April 19

Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $14-$17

Info: 327-4242, www.livetheatreworkshop.org

Grade: C

Elizabeth Gilbert (from left), Jessica Martin and Alexandra Tavares bring tons of energy to the stage in "Somebody/Nobody."

Do you think Picasso was ever a fan of the Three Stooges? Well, if he was, the eccentric painter would love “Somebody/Nobody” by Jane Martin.

The world premiere production by Arizona Theatre Company opened in a swirl of confetti, inspiring such adjectives as vigorous, frantic, flailing, frenzied, fidgety and extreme.

The comedy is off-beat and beyond way out there, with an energy level that’s full-bore, redline action.

Neil Simon this is definitely not.

Think of your favorite “Saturday Night Live” skit, then speed it up, overinflate it and at the right split-second, poke it with a pin.

Martin’s humor is relentless. The kind that walks out into the audience with a big club. Anybody who isn’t laughing gets bonked on the head.

It is hopeless for you to sit there with a grumpy expression, arms folded across your chest, complaining that nothing makes any sense. As David Byrne of the Talking Heads reminded us a long time ago, there are lots of things more important than making sense.

Jon Jory, the director, has perfectly cast this hectic statement on the nature of celebrity Hollywood-style. The kind of Los Angeles fame that comes, not from doing anything exceptional, but from being managed, manipulated and shot from guns as an object of media desire.

Alexandra Tavares returns to ATC from her magical spin in last season’s unforgettable “Clean House,” also directed by Jory. This time out, Tavares’ performance is even further over the top as Sheena, the B-movie chatter-head whose entire wardrobe comes in brilliant shades of shocking pink.

Sheena is flying through life so fast she’d be taking speed pills to slow down. Arrogance is what keeps her fueled. “Goddesses don’t care about other people,” she announces, and that is that.

On her solution for maintaining a crackling social life: “I keep replacement men in my extra bedroom.”

But Sheena also suffers mightily. All that nervous energy has turned into agoraphobia. Being seen in public is so painful, she compulsively flees an aggressive fan by running into the plain apartment of the super-plain and devoutly Christian diesel truck mechanic Loli (Jessica Martin, not related to the playwright).

Loli dreams of becoming famous. The kind of fame people pay attention to in her hometown of Flatt, Kansas – a place they call The Big Empty. That’s why she came to Los Angeles, but nothing is working out.

So when Sheena bursts into Loli’s apartment, Loli is delighted – even if Sheena is a blender full of quirky mannerisms and rude remarks. Sheena is a celebrity, after all. She can do whatever she wants.

All this colorful agitation comes to a screeching halt when broad-shouldered Joe Don (Jeremy Styles Holm) bursts in, ready to haul Loli out of this Sin City and back to Kansas. Full of cowboy mannerisms and a country accent, Joe Don is completely smitten by Sheena.

But this off-kilter trio of misfits is sent spinning into outer space with the explosive arrival of Galaxy (Elizabeth Gilbert), a bigger control freak than God himself.

“I’m like God,” Galaxy assures us. “Only more visible,” and she is absolutely right.

There will be several more surprises before this “Somebody/Nobody” conflict gets worked out. Rest assured, you might as well just give in and start laughing at the beginning, because for sure you’ll be laughing by the end.

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IF YOU GO

What: Arizona Theatre Company presents the world premiere of “Somebody/Nobody” by Jane Martin

When: Various times Tuesdays through Sundays through March 28

Where: Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.

Price: $26-$50

Info: 622-2823, arizonatheatre.org

Grade: B

Rafael Martinez and Bryant Enriquez portray young brothers in Mexico whose father leaves to pursue work in the U.S.

It’s a lot easier to feel offended by illegal border crossers when we don’t know who they are. Once a face is attached to each of these undocumented newcomers, all bets are off.

This is the message delivered with a poignant hand in the Borderlands Theater production of “Our Dad is in Atlantis (Papá está en la Atlántida)” by Javier Malpica.

Cast are Rafael E. Martínez as Big Brother, with Bryant Ranier Enriquez as Little Brother. Both actors are young men playing preadolescent characters with wonderfully innocent personalities.

The siblings are practically orphans, living in an undesignated Mexican village. Their mother has died and their father has dumped them off with their grandmother while he heads into the United States sans visa to look for work.

The father does write to his sons, mailing letters from Atlanta. But Little Brother thinks Dad is writing from Atlantis. Far more disturbing to both boys, the letters don’t mention anything about Dad coming back home. Or sending for them. Or anything.

And there are the stories about their grandmother, whom they see as an ill-tempered sort given to using her cane to enforce her commands. We don’t really know if this ever happens, though the boys are certain it will happen.

Malpica has structured the play, presented without intermission, as 10 separate blackout scenes performed on a bare stage. A pair of large wooden boxes, each a couple feet tall, serve as chairs, beds, a store counter and other props.

The scenes are titled “Stuff about the countryside,” “Stuff about Mom,” “Stuff about Dad” and so on. In each scene, we learn a little more about the lives of these two lads. And, of course, in each scene, we come to care about them in a new way.

By the time we get to “Stuff about the gringos” and “Stuff about the desert” our hearts are in their hands.

As director, Eva Zorrilla Tessler amplifies this simplicity by emphasizing the open faith of these two lads. They trust their father. They trust their grandmother, too, even if they aren’t sure about that cane. Both actors keep their enthusiasm focused on each scene, using a minimum of the body language that is stereotypically identified with kids. That makes it easier to see each personality develop.

Big Brother can’t resist intimidating his younger sib all the time, but feels totally responsible and protective, too. Little Brother wins us over with his genuine belief that life will get better if they can just find their dad.

We, the adults sitting in the audience and feeling superior, are meant to also feel guilty about letting the politics and recriminations between these two countries get so out of hand. You could not move this play to Canada, set it on two parentless Canadian boys sneaking into the U.S. and have it make any sense.

Also making a major contribution is Roger Foreman, who gives each scene additional shape with imaginative soundscapes that include lots of familiar noises (cars, sirens, barking dogs, etc) as well as original music. The most interesting parts are when he goes electronic with abstract sounds that make you feel worried, happy, tense or sad without really knowing why.

It is not giving away anything to say none of the play takes place on the north side of the border. Additional stage effects imply the boys do get across, but – just like in real life – one can never be sure.

———

IF YOU GO

What: Borderlands Theater presents “Our Dad is in Atlantis (Papá está en la Atlántida)” by Javier Malpica, translated by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas

When: in English, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and March 19 & 21, also 2 p.m. Sunday and March 22 • in Spanish 7:30 p.m. Thursday and March 20

Where: ArtFare, 55 N. Sixth Ave.

Price: $18.75 general admission, $17.75 seniors, $10.75 students

Info: 882-7406, www.borderlandstheater.org

Grade: A

It's easy to get swept up in the highly choreographed group numbers in "Grease."

Remember that girl back in high school who everyone liked? She wasn’t that cute but everyone liked her anyway.

That’s the way it is with “Grease,” the Fabulous Fifties musical that never wears out its welcome. A vigorous version is playing downtown at the Tucson Music Hall, the latest presentation by Broadway in Tucson – with plenty of black leather and lots of slicked back hair.

As for the Pink Ladies, they all looked very . . . pink. With turned up collars all around. High school fashions from the 1950s are important in this show. Letter sweaters, poodle skirts, rayon baseball jackets and those small-brimmed hats are all in there. Along with such 50-year-old phrases as “knocked up” and “going all the way.”

Most fun is the choreography by director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall. A stage full of performers pretending to be high school students whipped through crisply rehearsed routines that emphasized natural body movements and period dance steps, but elevated all that movement to a higher standard. Getting swept up in the enthusiasm was sooooo easy.

Just to prove no one is perfect, Marshall has dulled a positive impression by having her cast exaggerate every gesture and phrase reminiscent of the period. All the guys are underlining their double entendre jokes with pelvis thrusts and hammy leers. After awhile it gets a little annoying, as if the 1950s and campiness were synonyms. As if she isn’t sure audiences will think the show is funny, so she overdoes the acting to make it silly.

But in the end, the spirited dancing and enthusiastic singing carried the evening. It helped, too, that the pit band pushed the beat with genuine rock ‘n’ roll intensity. Who can resist those scooping saxophone low notes and doo-wop harmonies? Judging by the large number of young people in the audience on opening night, “Grease” has jumped the generation gap, as well.

The original songs written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey have been enhanced by the big screen version’s movie hits “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” “You’re the One that I Want,” the “Grease” theme and “Sandy.”

Another special enhancement in this nationally touring production is the appearance of “American Idol” winner Taylor Hicks as Teen Angel. His entrance turned applause into screams when he began singing “Beauty School Dropout.” Looking like a very dapper angel in his shiny charcoal suit, he tries to cheer up Frenchy (Kate Morgan Chadwick), who gets her own cheers and applause when, in a pause during the song, she strokes his chest and purrs “I voted for you.”

This is the only time Hicks is onstage, though he does come back after the curtain call to introduce the single from his new album, “What’s Right Is Right.” The addition gives the whole production kind of an odd and totally unrelated coda, but nobody seemed to mind.

Of the cast regulars, Allie Schulz stole the show playing Rizzo, the brassy 1950s prototype for today’s modern woman. She wasn’t butch, like Stockard Channing in the movie, but more high style, which didn’t quite fit. But when she was singing and dancing, the stage was hers alone.

Emily Padgett was appropriately sweet as Sandy, creating a character certainly deserving of the dismissive comparison, “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee.”

Eric Schneider was less successful playing Danny. He seemed too soft, but his singing and dancing were strong.

All of this combined to make my favorite number, the show-closing reprise of “We Go Together,” a truly grand finale.

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IF YOU GO

What: Broadway in Tucson presents “Grease,” featuring Taylor Hicks

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave.

Price: $25-$68

Info: 903-2929, broadwayintucson.com

Grade: B+

A spiked punch bowl keeps the laughs coming in "3 Guys in Drag."

If tragedy breeds comedy, a lot of tragedy should breed a lot of comedy. That is exactly what happens when three guys in drag set out to hold a yard sale to sell their stuff – a remarkable collection of bright-colored wigs and whimsical knickknacks. And, oh, yes, a sex toy or two.

Well, when a play is titled “3 Guys in Drag Selling Their Stuff,” you pretty much know that flamboyant costumery will be involved. This trio is wanting to sell stuff to raise money for an authentic Fabergé egg, which will become the final resting place for the cremated remains of Diva’s husband Horace. Up until now, he’s been kept in a pickle jar.

Diva, as played by Richard Chaney, is a balled-up bundle of nervous energy. Brittle humor is her weapon of choice to keep life’s cruel challenges at arm’s length. She has a handful of retorts for every situation, often with strings attached to her own ever-pulsing libido. Life can be so distracting for Diva, her cell phone is kept strapped to her thigh and set on vibrate. That way she won’t miss any calls.

She struts, she swaggers, she flounces, she tries to lure bored passers-by into becoming active participants in this al fresco enterprise, but to no avail.

“May I service you,” she asks an unseen shopper, then stops herself. “I mean, be of service to you?”

Effective business marketing was never one of her favorite subjects in school.

A cut glass bowl of bright red punch plays a prominent role, as well. Generously blended with alcoholic additives, the punch sinks lower in the bowl as the play goes on, and as the characters become increasingly disheveled.

The original idea was to attract attention by offering everyone free punch, encouraging them to browse among the items for sale. But by intermission, half the punch is gone and they still haven’t sold anything. So for Act Two, the sign says “Free Punch. With Purchase.”

As for those other two guys, Kenton Jones plays Lillian, a tall figure more fragile than Diva. Lillian is full of frets, happy to let Diva be the control freak. A life of the mind is more to Lillian’s liking, especially when that mind is tuned in to psychedelic phenomena and astral projections.

She is the one who spikes the punch bowl with absinthe during intermission, then gives the audience a description of absinthe’s effect and explains why it is illegal in the United States. As you might imagine, the bitter banter between Lillian and Diva is the sort we usually associate with old married couples – always complaining but never considering divorce.

Which is the point, really, of this surreal but touching comedy by Edward Crosby Wells. Whether you call them drag queens or cross-dressers, whether or not you admire their heightened appreciation for the extra dimensions of style in female clothing, these males have all the human emotions of everyone else. Just because their joys and sorrows are more color coordinated doesn’t mean they are different.

Diva and Lillian do have a third friend, Tink, who is confined to a wheelchair. Tink can’t talk much. She moves very little. Mike Sultzbach plays the role with remarkable concentration. Mostly he has to sit perfectly still. There are a few times when he gets to slip out of his body, so to speak, and talk to the audience about his problems.

Director Cynthia Jeffery has prepared a quickly moving production that puts the emphasis on heart. These three guys may be in drag but they aren’t flouncing around or calling up all the gay stereotypes. They know firsthand that going through life in a dress is tough enough when you’re a gal. Much more, when you’re not.

Jeffery also wants us to see the determination of Diva, Lillian and Tink to be true to themselves. So what if they feel more comfortable in heels. They are still willing to take out the garbage, to do their part. Ultimately, you have to admit that courage in any gender is a quality to be admired.

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IF YOU GO

What: Beowulf Alley Theatre Company presents “3 Guys in Drag Selling Their Stuff” by Edward Crosby Wells

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Sundays through March 1

Where: Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave.

Price: $20, discounts online (Thursday’s performance is a benefit for Wingspan, tickets $30 each)

Info: 622-4460, beowulfalley.org

Grade: B