Published: April 24, 2008 12:45 pm            

A Savage-ly funny play at the Plaza

By Mark A. Nobles

Special to the Times-Review



Ever wondered what label historians and archeologists will slap on our times 100, 500 or 1,000 years from now? We have the Stone Age, Iron Age and Industrial Age. They connote the major influences of these bygone times. What will they label our era? How about the Logo Age? Seems everything these days has a logo and/or sponsorship of some kind.

Our stadiums, our clothes, even the Olympic torch, all have logos and sponsors. Everything has a price tag because of our insatiable greed. Sometimes it does a body good to get off that capitalism-run-amok merry-go-round and think a little more altruistically. John Patrick’s “The Curious Savage” is a light, funny, satirical play that serves as a gentle reminder to stop and think about more fanciful things like hopes and dreams.

The play is centered on Ethel P. Savage, a free-spirited, slightly eccentric widow determined to set up a charitable fund with her deceased husband’s extremely wealthy estate to help people realize their hopes and dreams. We’re not talking about big, serious hopes and dreams like starting a business or curing cancer, but rather, the more whimsical kind. Ethel is more concerned with sending a group of children “on a trip around the world while there’s still a world around.” Remember, this was written in the 1950s Cold War era.

Ethel is an old woman you can root for as she plays cat and mouse with her three greedy stepchildren over the money. The stepchildren, Lilly Belle, a flighty socialite with six failed marriages, Titus, a U.S. senator with the worst record on Capitol Hill, and Samuel, a judge who’s decisions are always overturned, have Ethel committed to an “institution” in the hopes of regaining control over the family fortune. It is here she meets an oddball assortment of “guests,” who befriend and aid her in outwitting the misguided stepchildren.

Judy Keller plays Ethel with humor and grace. Her character totes this play on her back, and it is to her credit that you’re never quite sure if Ethel is crazy like a fox or mad as a hatter. Keller delivers one of the best lines of the evening when she laments, “Had I been a fool in my youth, no one would have noticed in my old age.”

Camille Shaw portrays Florence, one of the “guests,” who has suffered a debilitating personal tragedy. Shaw plays Florence with a gentle kindness that will make your heart break. Hannibal, another “guest” is played by JaceSon P. Barrus. Hannibal is a sort of Rainman, mathematical savant with a penchant for playing the violin and producing sounds like a tortured parakeet. Chris Martindale as the fragile Jeffrey is wonderfully understated, funny and tragic. Mrs. Paddy is the one guest who is truly unstable, and Tammy Rizzo plays her like a precocious toddler chasing an invisible cat.

Tonya Laree’s Lilly Belle is appropriately icy and indignant. Russ Walker as Samuel is a clueless follower dependent on big brother Titus to lead the way. G. Aaron Siler huffs and puffs throughout the play but never manages to blow over his stepmother’s house of bricks. Another highlight of the show is Siler’s convulsing mental breakdown in the second act.

James Long plays the wise and understanding Doctor Emmett with a quiet understatement. Jessica Keller’s long suffering Miss Wilhelmina is the perfect girl next door and in the end, wise beyond her years.

Tina Barrus has one of the standout performances of the Plaza season for her hilarious portrayal of Fairy May. Tina Barrus bops and bounces about the stage as if gravity were a mere suggestion, not a law. She delivers throwaway lines and gags that stop down the show as the rest of the cast waits for the audience’s laughter to die down. Fairy May’s innocence and fragile self-confidence are deftly rendered by Barrus.

Aaron and Milette Siler have directed a funny, brisk play that has a gentle moral that we all need to be reminded of from time to time. That moral is to spend a little less time chasing the dollar and spend a little more time being kind to your family and neighbors.

Kick your shoes off and run barefoot through the grass. Every once in a while, act like a kid again, or at least like one of the “guests” in “The Curious Savage” and ... don’t buy shirts with logos.

The show runs through May 10, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and two performances Saturdays at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. For information and reservations, call 817-202-0600 or visit www.plaza-theatre.com.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.