Topher Payne Gets Inside Joan Crawford's Head (and Pumps)

by Curt Holman

Creative Loafing

Atlanta actor and playwright Topher Payne considers himself lucky that Steven Spielberg, not Faye Dunaway, introduced him to Joan Crawford.

Most young people of his generation discover the silver screen icon – if they ever do – through Mommie Dearest, the unintentionally hilarious adaptation of Christina Crawford's tell-all memoir. Payne, 30, discovered the real actress instead of Dunaway's campy caricature.

As an 11-year-old boy in Kosciusko, Miss., Payne stumbled upon a rerun of "Night Gallery," which featured a segment called "Eyes," directed by a young Spielberg and starring Crawford. "She absolutely knocked my socks off. I couldn't help but hang on her every word, and watch every single move she made," he says. "Afterward, my mom tried, as best she could, to explain who Joan Crawford was. She was a goddamn movie star, and they don't make them like that any more."

The movie star's unmaking came through the one-two punch of her adopted daughter's angry 1978 exposé and the 1981 film version, which made hysterical dialogue like "NO WIRE HANGERS!" into punch lines in perpetuity. Now Payne's attempting to reveal another side of the dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship with the world premiere of his play Christina Darling, in which he plays the silver screen icon.

Payne began thinking critically about Mommie Dearest after yet another viewing in the early 2000s. The film ends with Crawford's death in 1977 and Christina's discovery that she'd been written out of her adopted mother's will. Payne recalls, "Her brother says, 'I guess Mommy got the last word,' and Christina replies, 'Did she?'"

"It's a wonderful grace note for the film, but after that, I heard that Christina Crawford had successfully sued Joan Crawford's estate and gotten a nice chunk of change," says Payne. "Getting the money, however, didn't fit in the image of Christina Crawford as the world's most famous victim. That was the first time I thought that Mommie Dearest might not have been the whole truth."

Payne decided to research Crawford's life with the idea of writing a play that offered a different perspective. "After I started delving into the events of Mommie Dearest, I delved into what was going on in the life of Joan at the same time, and it was almost beautifully contradictory. For instance, Christina talks about being sent to private school and not seeing her mother for months. But at that time, Joan had lost her contract with the movie studio and had to take shit roles in movies to pay for her daughter's education. And to maintain the image of Joan Crawford, which was expensive. If you're going to be an icon of glamour, you're going to have to pay the bills."

Playing through May 8 at the Process Theatre, Christina Darling largely takes place inside the mind of Christina Crawford (Barbara Cole Uterhardt) during her stroke in 1981. The near-death experience causes her to reassess her mother's career and their relationship. Christina Darling is Payne's 12th play to premiere in Atlanta. He describes it as the biggest play he's ever attempted, with the largest cast (eight actors) and the most complicated elements, including dance choreography, fight choreography, and recreations of Crawford's work and screen tests projected on video.

And, technically, two Joans. Kristin Kalabi plays the performer at the dawn of her career as a dancer from Oklahoma named Lucille LeSueur. "She became the quintessential jazz-age flapper, gangly and wild, everything that 'Joan' wasn't," says Payne. "Lucille becomes aware that she's part of a dying breed, so she creates Joan Crawford as this image of perfection to shield herself from the poverty of her upbringing and the gossip about her."

Payne appears as Joan halfway through the play, but never thought he'd be the one donning her costumes. "I initially wrote the role for Rachel Sorsa as Joan, but I took so damn long writing it, Rachel got married and moved to Los Angeles. Once I had the idea that Lucille and Joan would be separate characters, I had the idea of Joan being a man. The audience would always be aware of the artifice if we had a flesh-and-blood actor in the role, no matter how good hewas." Payne hopes the drag in Christina Darling has a similar effect as Charles Busch plays such as Die! Mommie! Die!, which acknowledge the artifice but still try to engage the audience's sympathies.

Christina Darling director DeWayne Morgan suggested that the playwright himself take on Joan, since Payne had performed drag roles as an actor (including the Process Theatre's Babylon, also opposite Uterhardt). Payne realized he'd have some big pumps to fill. "I initially resisted the idea a lot. An actor would have to live up to Joan. For a performer, that's an enormous hurdle."

Payne hopes audiences won't approach the show or the performance as a campy spoof on Crawford. "All I can do is play with all the sincerity I have," he says. "There are moments in the show when the comedy comes from the absurdity of who she is, and the body she's inhabiting [in Christina Darling]. It's important to play a person like Joan in line with the standards she had. So we do an extra hour of choreography rehearsal, and spend an extra half-hour to get the makeup right. Because that's who she was, that level of attention to detail."

During a 2005 interview with Creative Loafing, Payne alluded to legal red flags raised regarding Christina Darling by the title role's inspiration. "Here's what I can say," Payne laughed when asked about the legal challenge. "There's no one that's going to watch this show, that supposedly takes place as a psychotic episode during a stroke, with a 6-foot-3, 30-year-old man playing Joan, and mistake it for reality. It's clearly a product of the author's imagination."

Despite presenting an alternate point of view of the events in Mommie Dearest, Payne would welcome Christina Crawford to see Christina Darling. "The play isn't about vindicating Joan, it's about the fact that she and Christina deserved better than the public perception of them. There's no sunshine and rainbows at the end of the play, but a level of acceptance that feels much more respectful of everyone involved."

And maybe people will ease up on the wire hanger jokes.

What Happens After "Mommie Dearest?"

by Jim Farmer
Project Q Atlanta

As if researching the legendary Joan Crawford for several years wasn’t challenge enough, Atlanta playwright Topher Payne also stars as the Hollywood icon in his play “Christina Darling,” opening Friday.

Payne’s first draft of the play was back in 2004, but he quickly learned that he didn’t want to make this a simple story—or one with the histrionics of the campy Faye Dunaway movie “Mommie Dearest.”

“I wanted to flesh out the notion of what ‘Mommie Dearest’ would look like to Joan,” he says. “I learned more about her and realized this was really a family show.”

In the play, daughter Christina (Barbara Cole Uterhardt) has a stroke after watching the film version of her book “Mommie Dearest.” She is visited by her grandmother Ana (Betty Mitchell), who takes her through Joan’s life—from the time she was Lucille to the time she changed her name to Joan Crawford and the actress’ subsequent life—to give Christina an idea of who the woman really was.

Besides the often-volatile relationship Joan (Payne, photo) had with Christina, Joan had a strained relationship with her own mother.

“Ana saw affection as a weakness; she taught Joan the value of hard work,” Payne says. “Joan was on her own, and she attempted to instill that in Christina.”

Christina’s side of the relationship story was documented in the book, later made into the film. No one thought their relationship was ordinary, but some questioned whether it was as bad as Christina suggested.

DeWayne Morgan, who is directing the production for Process Theatre Co. at Onstage Atlanta, feels that some of what Christina says might have been exaggerated.

“I think a lot happened, but a lot was her anger,” he says. “Maybe she embellished it, like all daughters do!”

Morgan thinks the relationship completely fell into the sewer after Joan took over for her daughter on the soap opera “The Secret Storm.”

Payne does feel that Christina believes what she wrote, but he’s a little leery about Christina’s assertion that she wrote “Mommie Dearest” as a diary while Joan was alive, then took it to publishers after her death.

The grandmother character serves to wake up Christina and let her know that she can be an eternal victim, known only as Joan’s daughter, or move on.

“In a moment of decision, she has to prove she is more than that,” Payne says.

The playwright says the image-obsessed Joan would have been floored by the film version of “Mommie Dearest.”

“I don’t think we’ve had an entertainer who reached for perfection the way she did,” he says. “She only left the house as Joan. She would have been mortified by the movie. Image was so crucial to her. Her most important relationship was with her fans and the audience.”

Morgan feels there are a few moments in the script where this Joan has her Faye Dunaway moments, but for the most part, he feels Payne creates a three dimensional character.

“He has researched her from A to Z and knows everything about the character,” Morgan says.

Daughter Dearest

by Jim Farmer
Georgia Voice

The world premiere of Process Theatre’s “Christina Darling” this weekend marks another chapter in the saga of legendary Hollywood star Joan Crawford and her adopted daughter, Christina.

Christina’s rocky relationship with Joan was covered in Christina’s book “Mommie Dearest” and later made into a campy film with Faye Dunaway.

Now gay playwright Topher Payne explores Christina’s competing personal histories and the difficult relationship between mother and daughter.

The play opens after Christina (played by Barbara Cole Uterhardt) watches the film version of “Mommie Dearest” and has a heart attack. She is visited by her grandmother, who takes her on a journey to understand the life of Joan (played by Payne).

The Georgia Voice caught up with the inimitable Joan Crawford (Payne, of course) to discuss the play.

Hello Ms. Crawford. Can you tell us a little about your new show?
May I call you Jimmy?

Yes, ma’am.
Well, Jimmy, are you familiar with “Mildred Pierce?” [the film that won Ms. Crawford a Best Actress Oscar]. I think this surpasses that; it’s the “Mildred Pierce” for a new generation.

My adopted daughter Christina in the piece is played by actress Barbara Cole Uterhardt, who brings more to the role than Christina does herself. The great Betty Mitchell plays [grandmother] Anna and Kristin Kalbi is the young Joan.

I’m happy to be able to bring this show to my fans. It’s been a long time since I was able to greet them. I will stay all night until every single photograph is signed.

And the wardrobe, Jimmy! I can’t wait for my fans to see the wardrobe!

You and Christina both worked on the soap opera “The Secret Storm,” correct?
Anyone who saw Christina on “The Secret Storm” saw her specific limitations as an actress. Christina and I were able to work on the show. I stepped in for her. We never had the opportunity to share scenes but we did share a character. I was 62 and she was 28. I understand Christina did read for the part of herself in “Christina Darling” but I'm afraid even acting her own life is beyond her abilities.

Have you seen “Mommie Dearest?”
I have. After a few stiff drinks, I was able to make it through. Faye Dunaway is a committed and intense actress. She didn’t disappoint, but the script did not live up to the strength of the character.

How do you describe the relationship with Christina?
Christina has always had a casual relationship with the truth. She loves the value of stories. I’ve been dead for 30 years and to manufacture material, you have to be creative.

What do you make of Christina’s statements about your parenting skills?
It’s certainly not the first time I have heard that from her. Now that she is an adult, I wonder how clean her house is. What standards does she have? If people did not have standards, the whole world would go the hell. If she had been adopted by a hard-scrabble family in Oklahoma, I’d be interested to see how she turned out.
As for using wire hangers, if you could see what they can do to a good dress, you can understand why I never use them!

Ms. Crawford, have you always had a strong relationship with gay men?
I love all my gay fans. In Hollywood Billy Haines was a true and loyal friend, and loyalty is a precious thing. His partner Jimmy, they had the best of what a marriage can be. I did not experience that until later in my life.

Is it true that you dance in this show?
Yes. Anyone who had read my autobiography, "A Portrait of Joan," knows I started as a dancer. I am delighted to introduce or reintroduce dance to my fans. It’s been so long since I danced. But it’s work hard, Jimmy. Hard work!

Is Bette Davis attending opening night?
I have not heard that. It would be so kind of her! Encountering Bette is always such a memorable experience!

MORE WIRE HANGERS: Revisiting the Joan Crawford Mystique

by Robert Nesti
Edge Atlanta

For many, mention Joan Crawford and an image of a frightening, white-faced harridan brandishing a wire hanger comes immediately to mind. That image - and the classic line "No wire hangers" - comes courtesy of Mommie Dearest, the 1981 film biography of the great Hollywood star that featured Faye Dunaway in an impeccable, but near career-ending impersonation.

The source of the famous scene was taken from the tell-all biography of the same title written by Crawford’s adapted daughter Christina in 1978. It was the first and most famous of a series of biographies written by embittered progeny of famous stars who exposed their parents’ darker sides. But the question raised by both film and book is just how true was it? Was Crawford the monster her adopted daughter claimed she was or did Christina exaggerate things? At the time of the book’s publication some of Crawford’s friends came to her defense, while others acknowledged there was likely truth to Christina’s accusations.

Now Christina Darling, a new play having its premiere in Atlanta this week at the award-winning Process Theatre Company, explores the Crawford myth: what made Crawford the complicated individual she was and what led her to a disastrous attempt at motherhood? It is the brainchild of Atlanta-based actor/playwright Topher Payne, whose previous work includes Entertaining Lesbians and Beached Walls (2002); Relations Unknown (2003); Bad Mama (2005); and Above the Fold (2008), which won Payne a Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Award for Best Play. This play marks his tenth to premiere in Atlanta. He also authored a column, Necessary Luxuries, that appeared weekly in David Magazine for five years. A compilation was released in 2008 and is available in hardcover and paperback.

With the production, which continues through May 8, 2010, Payne is reunited with director DeWayne Morgan, with whom he most recently worked on Above the Fold. Morgan took over as Artistic Director of the Process Theatre Company in 2001.

EDGE recently spoke with both Morgan and Payne about how the play came about, whether Joan got a bad rap from Christina, the nature of camp and their favorite Joan Crawford movies.

De Wayne Morgan :: Is it high camp?

EDGE: How did the play come your way?

DeWayne Morgan: Actually Topher and I discussed the concept back in 2003/2004. At first I wanted him to write a parody of the movie, which is actually what the first draft was more like We workshopped it in 2004/2005, then never produced it. Then last year I approached Topher about bringing it back out of the closest, so to speak, and we ended up with the draft we have now.

EDGE: What did you like about it that made you want to produce it?

DeWayne Morgan: I always loved Mommie Dearest, I am gay what can I say! However the movie is so one-sided and makes Joan the villain. It only gives one side of the story. Christina Darling of course if fictionalized version of what might have happened; but it explores Joan and where she came from, her as Lucille Fay LeSueur, which was her named before it was changed to Joan. Here Joan’s mother is introduced. So, we get to the history of what helped shaped Joan and, eventually, Christina.

EDGE: How would you describe it? Considering it has both Christina and Joan Crawford in it, is it high camp?

DeWayne Morgan: Not at all. It has its moments of camp, but the play tries to show who these women really are and tries to help you understand what created them.

EDGE: What is the key to directing parodies, such as the ones by Charles Busch that this show appears to be in the style of?

DeWayne Morgan: I think finding the blend of when to have those real true moments and when to give the audience what they want. For example Topher and I struggled the ’No wire hangers’ scene. At first it was just going to be Christina telling the story to her headmistress Ms. Chadwick when she woke up from a nightmare. But in the end we decided to go with Joan recreating the movie version as Christina tells the story.

EDGE: Why is there still such a fascination with Joan Crawford?

DeWayne Morgan: She is everything all of us secretly want to be, strong, beautiful and she didn’t take crap from anyone! ("Don’t fuck with me, fellas!") She was fabulous. She had a drink in one hand and cigarette in the other and she always looked flawless.

EDGE: Do you have a favorite Crawford film?

DeWayne Morgan: Mildred Pierce

EDGE: Did Joan Crawford get a bad rap from Christina?

DeWayne Morgan: I really don’t know. I think some of what she said was true. Then I think maybe she embellished some things. I know for a fact that the movie did. Christina Crawford hated the movie because it was over the top and took a lot of things to extreme.

EDGE: You’ve worked with Topher Payne before - how would you describe your working relationship?

DeWayne Morgan: I would say "It’s one hell of a match," to quote Joan herself. We work very well together and have learned to trust each other over the years. I think this is our fifth play together and they only keep getting better and better. Last year Above the Fold that Topher wrote and I directed for The Process Theatre won best all around show for 2009 at the Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Award. So, we have a lot to live up to.

Topher Payne :: High camp? Nobody told me

EDGE: How did you come up with the idea of the play?

Topher Payne: I have a little recipe box I keep on my desk, and any time I have an idea I don’t quite know what to do with, I just jot it down and toss it in there. At some point after seeing Mommie Dearest for the umpteenth time, I wrote down a line for Joan Crawford: "Hello, Christina Darling. I read your book." I became enamored with the idea of Joan having a chance to give her perspective on things. The resulting research introduced me to Joan’s relationship with her mother, Anna, and I realized this is truly the whole family’s story.

EDGE: Is the play high camp? If so, how do you keep it real?

Topher Payne: If it is high camp, nobody’s told me, which is probably best. It’s definitely larger than life, by nature of the lives we’re experiencing. Nobody in this story feels anything small - everything is enormous to them. But the art of camp, I’m thinking Joan’s films from the 60s, or the works of Charles Busch, lies in its sincerity. If you play it broad, it rings false. You have to accept entirely that this is the world they inhabit. I guess camp is in the eye of the beholder.

EDGE: Who have been your influences as a playwright?

Topher Payne: Beth Henley, for sure. Paul Rudnick can write a one-liner better than anyone. I love Charles Busch’s range as an artist. Steve Yockey makes me want to take more risks. And Tyler Perry reminds me that the measure of success lies in the audiences you do manage to reach, not the ones you don’t.

EDGE: What do you like about Joan Crawford?

Topher Payne: I like her focus. I like her willingness and ability to adapt. I think she was a damn fine actress. And she looked great in hats. But she shouldn’t have raised children. Just dogs. Dogs were better suited to her expectations.

EDGE: Did she get a bad rap from Christina?

Topher Payne: I wish Christina had waited a few more years to write the book. She was still so close to the event of her relationship with her mother that I don’t think she was capable of approaching it with any degree of perspective. I don’t think Christina’s a bad person- I think she sought validation from the public because that’s what she was taught matters.

EDGE: What do you think of ’Mommie Dearest?’

Topher Payne: The book? It has its moments. Her follow-up, "Survivor," is significantly better. The film? Jesus, that script is a piece of shit. It’s a random series of events without cause or motive. The filmmakers never once question why anything happens, it’s just a horrible fact, like a tsunami. Which is a real shame, because Dunaway and Scarwid were capable of infinitely more, given half the chance.

EDGE: You play Joan in your play. How did you arrive at your characterization? Did you watch a lot of her movies?

Topher Payne: Oh, you’re asking me that on a bad day. I’ve been knitting and dancing all afternoon, trying to master both. It’s absolutely the hardest work I’ve ever done, finding her poise, her stillness, because I’m a big loud goofball in daily life. I look, sound, and move nothing like Joan. But I studied her, both in interviews and in films, to find the difference between the woman and the performer. Then I worked with Kristin Kalbli, who plays young Joan, to find our common body language. She’s so graceful and lovely, I stole a bunch of good stuff from her.

EDGE: Do you have a favorite Crawford film?

Topher Payne: Sudden Fear. Great flick, and quintessential Crawford. On the other hand, Strange Cargo, with Gable, is the least affected performance she gave in a talkie. It holds up with the best contemporary performances.

EDGE: Christina Crawford did have a stroke, but it was sometime after her book was published. Why did you incorporate it in your play?

Topher Payne: The stroke happens in the play as it did in life, in the summer of 1981. Those synapses start firing off in unexpected ways, and Christina’s life flashes before her eyes, but it’s all a little... off. Between the MGM press releases, the book, the movie, the magazine stories, she realizes she can’t trust her own memory. So her late grandmother comes in as a tour guide to help her clear things up a bit.

EDGE: Have you been in touch with Christina Crawford?

Topher Payne: I didn’t feel the need - I’m not presenting any of this as fact, just a fascinating "What if?" scenario. Christina’s told her version of events plenty of times over the years. But she’s doing very well these days. She’s a county commissioner in Idaho, and she hosts a public access show that’s, well... how to put this? Remember what I said about what makes good camp?

EDGE: This is the first time you are acting in a play you have written - what has that been like?

Topher Payne: Stupid hard. When I wrote it, I wasn’t picturing me, I was picturing Joan. As an actor, I want to honor that as much as I possibly can. I can’t say unequivocally I was the absolute perfect person for the role- that would be Charles Busch, I suppose - but I know no one would ever work harder than me to get it right. Whether I succeed, we’ll find out soon enough.

EDGE: How would you describe your relationship with DeWayne?

Topher Payne: You know how you work with someone for so long, you start thinking alike? Yeah, we don’t do that at all. Instead, we are able to anticipate what the other is going to think, and why we vehemently disagree with it. I argue with that man better than anyone I know, and it’s that level of commitment we both bring to the table, finding a way to reconcile our individual perspectives, which results in a beautiful collaboration. We respect each other a whole heck of a lot, and he loves new plays.

EDGE: If you could meet Joan Crawford, what would you ask her?

Topher Payne: I would ask her nothing. I’d just pour her a vodka and Pepsi, hand her the script, and wait for her notes.

"Designing Women LIVE" Play Relives Classic TV Fave

by Jim Farmer
Project Q Atlanta

Gay men longing for a return of Julia, Suzanne, Mary Jo and Charlene get a chance to see a live version of “Designing Women” on Wednesday and Thursday, with one great twist—the major performers are all male.

DeWayne Morgan, Topher Payne and their gang with Process Theatre Company are back in drag for “Designing Women LIVE”—which features actual scripts from the TV show—after last year’s successful “The Golden Girls LIVE” fundraiser, which raised money for AID Atlanta.

The success of the 2009 event encouraged the cast to stay in dresses, only as a different set of popular characters. The “Designing Women” fundraiser benefits Process Theatre, and the group is reserving future “Golden Girls” shows to be specifically associated with AID Atlanta fundraising.

“The response to the ‘Golden Girls LIVE’ fundraiser for AID Atlanta exceeded everything we expected,” Payne says. “We didn’t want to confuse the audience base and the charity program by doing ‘Golden Girls’ this time, so we’ll reserve that for AID Atlanta, and ‘Designing Women’ will directly benefit Process Theatre.”

The shows are a great way to introduce the theater experience to a new audience that doesn’t regularly attend stage plays, he says.

“People who aren’t as willing to come to a play might come to see what we do with this fun show, and some of those may come back to see a legitimate world premiere,” Payne says. “It gets people in the habit of and comfortable with the idea of enjoying a night at the theater.”

Process will debut playwright Payne’s latest work this spring.

Morgan, the artistic director of Process Theatre, says that the “Designing Women LIVE” cast is full of gay men. He stars as Suzanne Sugarbaker, and Payne stars as the older and wiser sister Julia Sugarbaker.

The rest of the cast includes Greg Morris as Mary Jo Shively; Joey Ellington as Charlene Stillfield; and Spencer Stephens as Anthony Bouvier. Actress Jill Hames—who played Little Edie in the recent “Grey Gardens” production at Actor’s Express—plays the kooky Bernice Clifton.

Morgan feels that the ensemble works well together, but he says Hames might steal the show as Bernice.

“She is the most dead-on of all of us,” Morgan says. “At our first rehearsal, we could not stop laughing.”

Payne agrees: “She’s eerily accurate.”

The two episodes that the group is adapting for the stage are “Suzanne Goes Looking for a Friend,” in which Suzanne deals with a beauty queen friend who has come out of the closet, and “Bernice’s Sanity Hearing,” in which Bernice’s mental stability is called into question.

Neither episode is available on DVD, so it should be fun to revisit shows that haven’t been available for years. The cast also decided to weave some classic moments from other episodes into the stage script, so the patched-in “Best Of” monologues and one-liners make the material extra fresh. Payne incorporates Julia’s famous “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” monologue into one skit, for example.

“[‘Designing Women’] is so loved and well known, especially in Atlanta,” Payne says. “I have never felt such an obligation to get every word and inflection perfect.”

Morgan says that, like “The Golden Girls,” “Designing Women” attracted a lot of gay viewers, and that he himself was a huge fan of the show.

“What’s not to love,” he says. “You have an ex beauty queen that all gay men can relate to, as well as a Joan Crawford like character in Julia. These four women are just the greatest combination. And the fashions are great.”

Morgan remembers that “Designing Women” and “The Golden Girls” had a lot in common. “Both had four women, some larger than life, and each had a gay episode and an episode dealing with AIDS,” he says. “But despite similarities, each was its own show.”

To prepare, Morgan has been watching the “Suzanne Goes Looking for a Friend” episode over and over to get Suzanne’s mannerisms and movement.

“It’s a lot of fun (playing her),” he says. “I loved her as a kid. She tells it like it is and spares no one.”

What’s next for this lively crew of performers? Payne hints that “Bewitched” is on the table for a benefit show, but in the expect-the-unexpected world these guys live in, anything is possible.

The Process Theatre Company’s “Designing Women LIVE” runs at Onstage Atlanta Wednesday, Feb. 24 and Thursday, Feb. 25. Online tickets are available, or call 404-245-4205. And hurry, Wednesday’s performance was almost sold out as of Tuesday afternoon.

The Life Aquatic

A Craigslist ad for a no-strings hookup leads to an apocalyptic dilemma in boom

by Curt Holman
Creative Loafing

Aurora Theatre’s comedy boom gives new meaning to the expression “I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last person Earth.” Directed by Joe Gfaller, boom begins with an unimaginably lousy date that somehow manages only to get worse.

Jo (Eve Krueger), a young journalism student, responds to a Craigslist ad promising a no-strings-attached hookup. Meek marine biologist Jules (Topher Payne), who placed the ad, shies away from Jo’s sexual aggressiveness, and eventually reveals that he’s both gay and a virgin. When Jo asks how he knows he’s gay if he’s never been with anyone, Jules replies, “The non-randomness of the erections.”

Nodding to the aquarium in his underground lab, Jules explains that his examination of fish behavior patterns has convinced him that a cataclysmic event is nigh. He and Jo could end up as the last two people on Earth, although Jo accuses him of engineering a “Cormac McCarthy meets Road Warrior meets 'Survivor'” fantasy. Krueger and Payne prove well-cast as the mismatched couple, but the comedic action doesn’t quite crackle in the play’s initial section, which unfolds like a “Kids in the Hall” sketch.

Meanwhile, in a corner of the performance space, a woman with the name tag “Barbara” (Shelly McCook) plays a massive drum and operates peculiar controls during key moments. A cheerful tour-guide type, Barbara addresses the audience with increasing frequency, until her personal subplot rivals Jo and Jules' relationship. McCook may have been born to play quirky, chipper roles that call for physical humor, and she winningly captures Barbara’s habit of miming words that she can’t speak aloud.

I won’t spoil whether Barbara is really “there” or not, but as her minidrama interweaves with Jo and Jules’ increasingly outlandish predicament, boom touches on much deeper emotions than you’d expect from the play's beginning. Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s play inaugurates both Aurora’s smaller performing space and Georgia Gwinnett College Lab Series and promises to bring intriguing, adventurous new plays to Lawrenceville. By the end, boom approaches the good-natured satire of the late, beloved Douglas Adams, and offers a new spin on Adams’ catchphrase, “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

"Greater Tuna" Spoofs Small-Town America

By L. Pierce Carson

The Napa Valley Register

A simple party skit nearly three decades ago blossomed into a critically acclaimed comedy that’s been staged in theaters all over the world — even a command performance at the White House.“Greater Tuna” is a delightfully devilish satire on life in rural America created by Oklahoma natives Joe Sears, Jaston Williams and Ed Howard, who also served as its original director.

Two actors play more than two dozen characters — including men, women, children and animals — who inhabit Tuna, “the third smallest town in Texas,” where the Lions Club is far too liberal and Patsy Cline hits are heard nonstop on radio station OKKK. The two-act, two-hour comedy begins with a radio report on the death of Judge Roscoe Buckner from an apparent stroke while wearing a 1950 turquoise Dale Evans one-piece swimsuit with “lots of cowgirl fringe,” and draws audiences in as it provides a fascinating look at outrageous small-town inhabitants, along with non-stop laughs.
The show began in the early ’80s as a party skit the trio created based on a political cartoon. Early tour dates found an instant audience coast to coast, as the show played to packed houses in San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston and Hartford before Sears and Williams found themselves performing “Greater Tuna” for more than a year Off-Broadway at Circle in the Square Theatre.That led to an HBO special produced by Norman Lear, which took the “Greater Tuna” phenomenon to every city in America.

Sears and Williams eventually took the show to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and a pair of command performances at the White House for President and Mrs. George H. W. Bush in 1990 and ’91.The popularity crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1988 as the highlight of Scotland’s famed Edinburgh Festival, while San Francisco’s Marines Memorial Theatre saw a record-breaking seven-year run.Audiences liked “Greater Tuna” so much that Sears and Williams have written three sequels, which are all playing somewhere in the country at present.

“Greater Tuna” finally showed up in wine country last weekend, in the capable hands of a pair of talented southerners, Jef Holbrook (Georgia) and Topher Payne (Mississippi). Sunday afternoon’s performance at Yountville’s Lincoln Theater was the final stop on a seven-month-long coast-to-coast tour. Seeing someone other than Sears and Williams inhabit the characters they created was indeed enlightening — to see that they’d drawn such larger-than-life caricatures that others could build on.

Although I’d seen the savvy Oklahomans send audiences into fits of laughter on numerous occasions, there were moments when I actually thought the weekend visitors were able to breathe added life into their respective roles. This is not an easy show to do as both men are often required to walk off stage and reappear in a matter of seconds as someone new, wearing a completely different set of clothes.

The two-member cast launches its small-town tale with radio announcers Thurston Wheelis (Holbrook) and Arlis Streuve (Payne), roles to which they return throughout the show.But they also introduce us to the Bumiller family — Holbrook as the well-intentioned mother, Bertha, and Payne playing the roles of the three children — twins Stanley (a reform school alum) and Charlene (a cheerleader reject) and Jody, who willingly takes home all the stray dogs offered to him by the director of the humane society.

Holbrook also does a star turn as Aunt Pearl Burriss, who runs a one-woman campaign against chicken-killing dogs with her “bitter pills” (read poison) until she accidentally kills her husband’s prize bird dog.The list of characters includes a klansman, staunch weatherman, UFO spotter, and the vice president of the Smut Snatchers of the New Order, a fashionista named Vera Carp. I feel Payne made this character even more bizarre than the actor who created the role.

A moderately sized crowd, offered a cool auditorium on a hot afternoon, seemed to really enjoy this marvelous satire of small town Americana. Holbrook and Payne did the show’s authors proud.