NICEVILLE — “Greater Tuna,” opening Wednesday night at Northwest Florida State College, has everything a rollicking stage comedy needs: fast pacing, fast costume changes, an unexpected death, drag roles, bigger-than-life characters, and one really serious mullet.
For a show performed through this weekend in Niceville, the latter is a particularly nice touch.
Director Clint Mahlie deftly guides his four talented cast members through a day in Tuna, Texas, where the hair is big and the minds are narrow.
It’s the sort of place where the Lions Club is considered too liberal and Connie Carp won the Tuna High School essay contest with a piece called, “Human Rights: Why Bother?”
Student actors Carla Von Kaenel, Dakota Blankenship, Lydia Phillips and Alec West portray 21 different characters in a spectacular cavalcade of costume and character changes.
NON-STOP LARFS
I have loved “Greater Tuna” for years, and worry that new productions just won’t give justice to Jason Williams, Ed Howard and Joe Sears’ rapier-like dialogue.
My fears were allayed when the lights dimmed in the Sprint Theater and Carla and Dakota burst onstage as DJs Arles Struvie and Thurston Wheelis, instantly establishing the raucous, in-your-face pace “Tuna” demands.
It’s prop comedy without the props. The gags cascade from one outrageous situation to the next, which the cast handles with confidence, as if playing four or five or six totally different characters is easy.
With such diverse characters, no actor’s better than any other. But to give Crestview student Alec credit, he gets the show’s best hair.
As ne’er-do-well Stanley Bumiller, his sulkiness should be patented. And his Vera Carp is statuesque in a Sarah Palin sort of way and his legs aren’t bad in those high-heels.
Dakota’s Pearl Burris is a scream, especially since everybody knows someone like her. Bless her heart, poor Pearl just can’t sleep well “knowing there’s no strychnine in the house.”
Carla as Arles Struvie at first threw me, used, as I am, to seeing the role done by a guy, but whaddya know, the character sure works swell as a girl, especially when she does those fluttery hand-fans.
Lydia, in her leather cowgirl outfit, is an awesome D.D. Snavely, whose used weapons emporium promises if one of her guns doesn’t kill, “it must be immortal.”
Her portrayal of P.T. Fisk, formerly Petey Fisk, as a stoner was also unexpected, but was amazingly effective.
I wish other theatrical troupes that did “Greater Tuna” with the usual two actors would see this production.
“Tuna’s” not supposed to drag out. Keeping it fast keeps it fresh, because as everyone knows, slow old “Tuna” really stinks.
Grab your cowboy boots, head over to the Mattie Kelly Center and don’t miss this laugh-filled visit to the third-smallest town in Texas. But leave your intellect at home.
“I don’t believe we have that in Tuna,” Bertha Bumiller, a.k.a. Carla, says.
WANT TO GO?
WHAT: Northwest Florida State College production of “Greater Tuna”
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 22-25
WHERE: Sprint Theater, Mattie Kelly Arts Center, Niceville
COST: $15 adult, $10 youth 18 and younger, 1 free ticket for NWFSC students with ID from the box office only.
NOTES: Tickets from the Box Office, 729-6000 or online, www.MattieKellyArtsCenter.org.
Email News Bulletin Arts Editor Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Fresh 'Tuna' has everything a stage comedy needs, including a mullet (VIDEO, PHOTOS)