Before Editing...

AND THIS WAS THEATRE
by Angelica Gouté

It is with sheer delight that your humble reviewer reports cashing the advance cheque in the sum of $150 for this review article, concerning last night's premiere. I shall have dinner tonight, which is more than is deserved by the unfortunate rabble of players whose meager talents were taxed beyond their limits by an original local play at the Kiln Playhouse in downtown Oceanside less than 24 hours ago.

If there is justice in this dreary, tainted world, these languishing cretins would be banished to the dark countryside and down to the unforgiving sea. Such was there collective crime against art and mankind.

Said production, "Hathaway's Calling," by neophyte playsmith Dell Harpsham – a gurgling dullard who should have been strangled in his very crib – opens ironically on the fair morning of a baby's birth; a loud DIY affair heralded by shouts of "Push! Push!" somewhere offstage. After a thunderous scream, and tidal thrush of breaking womb water, emerges from the wings Anna, played by that wobbling birch log, local actress Kay Fong. Anna cradles the newborn in her vice-like arms, and looks decidedly unfazed for a woman who has supposedly just pumped out a greasy bald littl'n.

Ginger-haired, freckle-plagued leading man Roy Lunst, is neither pleased nor pleasing as Anna's husband, LaRue. The child is female, and LaRue's heart was set in stone in want of a son to carry on the family name.

In this reviewer's opinion, the gender of the tyke should have been the least of LaRue's concerns, as the toy doll used for the babe, bore skin a rich chocolate. This anomaly was never touched upon.

LaRue's fury threatens the sanctity of the new family, and he confesses a strange obsession with a far-off yearning, or yearning with a far-off obsession. The road beckons, and he is off, duffel in hand, in search of an unspoken dream. Anna's tears do little to douse the flame of LaRue's passion to wander – and absolutely nothing to foment audience sympathy, as said tears never truly appear – such is the girth of Fong's repertoire.

From there, the story tumbles forth like a platter of leftover lasagna thrown into a quarry.

Actress Fong's placing of her newborn in the cradle, holding it by its neck while straightening an uncooperative blanket, was certainly attention-getting. As was tossing said bassinet offstage like a sack of old workshirts, in a sudden rush of what could only be frustration – likely at her faulty memory for dialogue, which she liberally peppered with volleys of 'gawddammits,' various slang for fecal matter, and strategically placed 'f-bombs,' all seemingly aimed at the show's producers.

Geriatric dynamo Audrey Wurztram, as Anna's loyal housemaid, Opal, turns in what is arguably the most interesting performance of the show – wearing a costume that seems part period, part anachronism, and muttering "Good ever-loving gawd" under her lines, exiting with a syrupy pale orange zig-zag of urine trailing after her. Was it in the script? Writer Harpsham was unavailable for comment.

The show's director, local treasure Cleve Dozier, who boasted his pleasure during last week's rehearsal at the show's "verité and daring," seemed unable to contain himself from his choice front row seat last night, with teary raving cants of "oh mother," and "oh dear gawd, mommy!"

LaRue – Lunst running the emotional alphabet from A to B – continues on his journey, to meet Randa, a worldly wise prostitute (played by geriatric dynamo Audrey Wurztram in a quick-change dual role) who has taken a vow of silence, and Father Gullem, portrayed by area thespian and restauranteur Ford Krevich, a priest whose unbridled addiction to cabbage and asparagus threatens to unravel his faith. He speaks to LaRue in riddles, with each mystery translated into exotic dance by Randa, with all the arousing gyration of the mechanical T-Rex one sees advertised at Air Shows.

But LaRue has a riddle of his own for Father Gullem, and whispers it in his ear, which causes the pious padre to go into convulsions, bellow like a speared wildebeest, and pee-pee dance his way offstage, never to be seen again. The riddle is never revealed, though may be fairly guessed at, considering the barrage of half-muffled epithets from beyond the scrim, and what appeared to be a dog-eared, Post-it note covered playscript suddenly heaved onstage.

An unannounced intermission occurred at this juncture in the proceedings, when director-producer Dozier stood up upon his front row seat, and loudly offered to refund the audience's ticket costs, along with pleas of "Get me a rope!" and "just castrate me!" His Local Treasure-ness was just as quickly subdued by two large usherettes who punched him copiously in a headlock and dragged his limp body off into the darkness below the exit sign.

Like a three-chilidog nightmare, the show marched on.

Fortunately, the comic relief got their cue. Area theatre stalwarts Herc Jenson and Kell Harris attempted to, as usual, wow the crowd as master traveling salesmen "Jim & Jules." Sadly, it was their old standby song-and-shuffle, which perhaps they have drawn once too often from that moldy vaudevillian well:

"Hey Jules, I heard your cousin's in the hospital!"

"Yep Jim, he saw a billboard that said 'drink Canada Dry!' so he drove up there and tried to!"

I ask, how often can one gild that lillie?

The actual intermission, at the 94-minute mark, consisted of warm tap water and margarine sandwiches, sold at the downstairs snack counter for a dear five dollars. Smoking is allowed on the lobby's central aviary roof, which is constructed of half-inch thick pine planks and chicken wire. It creaks menacingly. Cigars are prohibited as the ash may actually burn through the nigh paper-thin platform, which covers not an arbor suite of our singing feathered friends, but a two-foot deep repository of their pungent droppings, which is assumed highly flammable – condemned yet strangely ignored by the City Sanitation Department.

Nothing like a billowing bird shit inferno to mark time 'tween theatre acts.

Sadly the curtain still proved operational for the commencement of Act II. And what an "act" it was!

The sullen morality yarn had suddenly become a musical extravaganza, with two dozen flower-clad maidens tap dancing their way into our lower colons. All ages of tap artisans were represented from junior high to age-spot. The song's title could only be guessed at: something akin to "I Love To Slo-Mo," or "I Lube Up Tofu." I know I'm in the ballpark.

All the more irritating was the lack of an orchestra of any kind, despite a wide, empty orchestra pit. The acapella warblings of the tap maidens, combined with a bare wooden stage pounded into toothpicks by relentless brass-studded soles, reminded me of the old joke about the man who hit himself repeatedly in the forehead with a hammer.

"Why do you do that," asked a friend?

"It feels so good when it stops."

Unfortunately it was only a fresh beginning. The hellish test was born anew as the cast reappeared to pick up where they had left off in the first act.

Once more embarked upon his sojourn of self-discovery, LaRue is again confronted by strangers bearing headachey riddles. The next encounter involves an unwashed, cauldron guarding biddy wearing shredded Goodwill attire (again, versatile senior Audrey Wurztram). "Riddle me..." I assume was the line she attempted. Instead, an electrifying nausea consumed all remaining audience, at what sounded like "Diddle me..."

LaRue's attention, or perhaps more accurately, Lunst's, suddenly is drawn to a mystery beyond the curtain. "Oh..." he grunts, and shoves the grimy witch-i-tute offstage, with a hoarsely whispered "Go go go screw it." An avant-garde scene transition to say the least.

At first the impression is that LaRue has accepted the "Diddle" invite and is hustling his gruesome paramour behind the wings to consummate the deal. If so, it is the quickest quickie of all time, for LaRue is back on the road in the next scene, which thankfully wields his third and final riddling stranger.

Returning for a bizarre encore, Herc and Kell, the former upon the latter's shoulders, beneath a 20-foot long overcoat – with Kell in a $1.75 halloween mask – enter. The "Dreaded Creature of the Lost Highway," as the character refers to itself, asks LaRue his last and ultimate riddle that will allow him passage to the "wondrous dream world" according to writer Harpsham's glorified toilet tissue.

LaRue wails defiantly his answer, which sounded like either "Tell me reality, what!" or "Hell you're really a twat!" The Kiln Playhouse's sound system truly deserves the junk heap.

At LaRue's timber-rattling retort, Kell loses his balance atop Herc beneath the "horrifying" creature outfit... which causes the macabre stage presence to appear to break in half – the top half slamming the boards with bone cracking finality, to be dragged off by two frantic stagehands who appear out of the ether. The creature's bottom half throws up its arms beneath the costume, and waddles off in grim contemplation.

The creature defeated, and all riddles answered, LaRue is granted entry into the above-mentioned "wondrous dream world," to discover it is merely his own home, with Anna and plastic brown infant waiting for him. Fong played the scene having already disengaged from her costume, wearing what could only be her personal "par-tay" attire and "stylin'" make-up. I'm willing to bet she skipped the aftershow party, nay, was the first out the door after the curtain.

She was certainly artist-absentia for the final bow. Which made the moment a tad imperfect, for the curtain descended as if completely unhinged from its moorings, knocking Lunst cold, and pinning Ford Krevich to the stage with enough gusto for him to bleat piercingly in less polite terms than used here, of a potential lawsuit. Fong's presence in this injurious turn of events was sorely missed, though intensely wished for.

Your humble reviewer, unencumbered by any remaining audience as she made her hasty exit, was waved a cheery goodnight by the theater's janitor, who seemed none too hurried to venture into the auditorium with his mighty mop and soapy suds bucket. "Fight on, brave warrior, your reward is nigh."

The final parting shot of the evening occurred outside, where local treasure Cleve Dozier, in an inebriated ecstasy, was seen with bottle of liquid freedom in hand, directing traffic at the intersection. Hazzah, sir.

"Hathaway's Calling" leaves many questions not requiring immediate answers. The first of which is, who the hell is Hathaway? As a theatrical experience, I can only site the words of LaRue: Go go go screw it.