Hey, you fudge-sucking trolls. Look me in the hairy eyeball and just try to say "Escanaba in da Moonlight" isn't funnier than a buck wearing suspenders! I mean, Albert Soady tells a might tall tale, but the Augusta Barn's version is as tasty as a fresh, hot pasty -- eh?
Even the usually debonair Barn Theatre owner, Jack Ragotzy, donned a flannel shirt and cap to welcome Tuesday's full house of about 450 for the first official show of the Barn's 58th season.
Michigan playwright Jeff Daniels has done a great job of capturing Yooper-speak in this visit to the Soady deer camp just north of Escanaba. Some of the lines, such as "if we'd wanted people to come up here we would have let you build the bridge sooner," probably make sense only in Michigan, but the physical humor needs no translation.
Albert Soady, father of Reuben and Remnar, narrates the story of deer camp, 1989. Reuben is an embarrassment because he's 35 years old and has never bagged a buck, so this year Reuben tries some Indian potions concocted by his wife to change his luck. His brother, however, counts on superstitious traditions to continue his streak of shooting the biggest deer in the camp. The sibling rivalry and the father's firm hand create a solid reality from which the rest of the tale spins completely out of control.
There's the Jimmer, a family friend who has spoken in gibberish since he was abducted by aliens. There's the dreaded DNR ranger who thinks he's seen the face of God. And there are UFOs, Indian legends, bright lights, strange voices, unexplained events.
Director Brendan Ragotzy has pulled together a strong cast featuring a couple of Barn regulars, Scott Burkell and Eric Parker, and a couple of local actors, Mike Helms and Roy Brown, who reprised roles they played in the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre's presentation of "Escanaba" in March.
Helms has a wonderfully folksy, fatherly feel. Brown creates an intense and electric Jimmer, whose gibberish actually starts making sense after a while. Parker and Burkell had all the timing and delivery right, but somehow neither made very convincing Yoopers. That actually worked to Burkell's advantage, because clean shaven and aloof only made him seem more of an outcast in this bearded bunch.
Several of the characters stumbled over lines on opening night, which will probably get smoother as the week goes on.
Richard Haptonstall has created a wonderful set that is a wood-sided cabin when the lights are up but turns into a pine forest when backlit. And while we're on lights, Monique R. Norman's lighting design included some wonderful effects of the sky getting redder and redder as Jimmer is about to let loose with a deer camp, uh, salute.
Several times in the two-hour show, the laughter hardly stopped long enough for the actors to say their lines. So, even if you can't make it over the bridge to Albert Soady's "heaven," make it to Augusta. It's the closest I want to get to deer camp.
The laughs are nonstop, and Jeff Daniels' eccentric characters will stick in your memory like the first bite of a Spam and mayonnaise on Bunny Bread sandwich.
That first bite will go down a little easier if you keep a few things in mind: This is a buck story (think tall tale) narrated by a Yooper. Albert Soady shares his memories about an occasion more important than Christmas: the first day of deer-hunting season. All of his references to UFOs, white lights in the woods and sightings of strange animals might be inspired by a combination of sap whiskey, porcupine urine and testosterone.
More importantly, keep in mind that this also is a story about a rite of passage for Albert's son Reuben, who seeks to reverse his luck, bag his first buck and make his mark in the Soady book of records.
Although there are plenty of gag lines and scatological humor in the show, Scott Burkell manages to infuse the role of Reuben with a winning combination of vulnerability and naivete. Burkell's submission to his character's magical transformation to manhood helps to endow the play's stupid male tricks with a sense of reality and urgency.
Because something is at stake for Burkell, the action becomes something more than a silly drunken romp in the north woods. Eric Parker, as Remnar Soady, provides a convincing contrast as the brother who seems to have found his own steady place in the manly standard of measurement by points and rack width.
Roy Brown, reprising his role as Jimmer Negamanee from the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre production this spring, delivers the evening's most remarkable performance. Jimmer, from Menominee, is one of the more unusual characters to grace the modern comic stage. Brown's sputtering entrance in Act I is something to behold, a cross between a whirling dervish and a cartoon version of a Tasmanian devil. You don't quite know what it is or what it is saying, but stand clear and hang on! The rest of the characters just refer to it as "The Jimmer."
Whether breaking onto the stage or breaking wind, the Jimmer has his humor strengthened by the rest of the cast, who play their roles convincingly, under the careful direction of Brendan Ragotzy.
Finally, scenic designer Richard L. Haptonstall's set underscores the presence of the surrounding wilderness, while Monique R. Norman's lighting and James Stephenson's sound provide believable special effects that help give weight and credence to the script's numerous supernatural elements.
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