Review: A Tuna Christmas by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard. Directed by MaryBeth Dagg. With Jay Jenkins and Buddy Mahoney. Now through December 24 at ArtsWest Playhouse.
Y’all have heard of “The Tuna Tetralogy”, the series of plays that started with Greater Tuna in 1981 that features two actors playing all the characters in a tiny and wacky Texas town, right? It was a huge success, played theaters across the country and eventually led to three sequels, A Tuna Christmas, Red, White and Tuna, and the recently produced, Tuna Does Vegas. Created by struggling, gay actors Jaston Williams and Joe Sears, the campy, quick change comedies have become popular with theater companies all over the world; they’re relatively cheap to produce and audiences have come to love the concept of male actors dragging it up and playing these larger than life characters. Frankly, the Tuna franchise has become the McDonald’s of the theater circuit and while the humor is not that fresh and the show is about as naughty as an episode of Gilmore Girls, it still can provide some laughs and an easy night of theater fun that’s pretty much acceptable to the entire family but it’s not very “nutritious” and it definitely won’t enrich your soul. Much like McDonalds….
That being said, I like corny, campy humor and the “Tuna” plays can be a lot of fun…if done correctly. These plays need to be zippy, snappy, quick changing and to the point. It needs to MOVE at a brisk pace and quickly bounce from joke to joke and from quick change to quick change. That’s the whole point of the show. Two guys tell jokes and change their costumes a lot. It’s not rocket science. It’s stunt theater and if you don’t pull off the stunt successfully, what’s the point of the play?
Sadly, ArtsWest doesn’t pull off this stunt. Their production of “A Tuna Christmas” has its native charms intact: the quirky characters and Southern cornpone soap opera plot, but the pacing of this show is erratic and at times, stupefyingly slow. Director MaryBeth Dagg apparently directed this show with an hour glass instead of a stopwatch… The set changes were long and killed the momentum of the show, and the overall design of the production was low-rent, dull and uninvolving. It teetered over into Community Theater Land and I don’t mean to disparage the fine folks working in community theater groups across the country, but I expect a bit more from ArtsWest. They’ve done high quality work in the past, but it wasn’t much on display in “Tuna”.
Part of the problem was in the casting. Not the performances, but the casting of the two actors. Both Jay Jenkins and Buddy Mahoney were fine in their performances, though I preferred Mr Mahoney’s take on his roles a bit more than Mr Jenkins’s. Mr Mahoney seemed to have a better grasp of the camp nature of the piece and played the comedy a bit broader than Mr Jenkins. But, my main problem with this casting is the fact, that…(how to put this politely) both Mr Mahoney and Mr Jenkins are full-figured, husky men. The tradition in comedy, especially with comedy teams or duos, is to cast contrasting types for greater comic effect. Examples: Laurel & Hardy, Abbot & Costello, French & Saunders, Sonny & Cher. You don’t cast SIMILAR types in the same show…it lessens the effect and dampens the humor. The original “Tuna” duo of Sears & Williams: skinny and chubby. Hello? It’s done for a reason. It heightens the humor and the comedic tension. It’s also more interesting to look at and helps differentiate the characters. Two big guys playing every resident in a tiny town only tells me one of two things: everyone is inbred, or, they have an obesity problem in Tuna, Texas. It’s just lazy casting and inconsistent directing.
Not to kick them while they are down, but I also have to point out that ArtsWest did an excellent job a month and a half ago with another campy, corny show, “Evil Dead: the Musical!” Did they blow the yearly budget on that show? It had charming, well conceived and constructed sets, props, effects and costumes and it was well directed and performed. “Tuna’s” sets, costumes, props are dull and sloppy. The actors, despite the poor casting, give fine performances but were poorly directed. I know not every show a theater company gives can be a “winner” but I expected a bit more from ArtsWest. It’s a disappointment.
Who’s this for? Undemanding fans of simple entertainment. Diehard ArtsWest supporters.
– Michael Strangeways
