Greater Hilarity Provides Raucous Relief

As the Petticoat Junction soundtrack picks up steam, the lights go up on a barren set featuring a homey dinette and two good ole' boys dressed for an episode of Hee-Haw, getting ready to broadcast the morning news over Greater Tuna's airwaves. And among the items of interest, we are informed that beef is up, pork is down, and tropical rainstorm Luther is headed directly our way just in time for rehearsals of My Fair Lady set in Polynesia at Greater Tuna High...

Welcome to Tuna, Texas. Population: slow.

This is the home of sowbelly breakfasts and the Better Baptist Bureau, where the folks will tell you that lying is a hell of a better time than telling the truth and "Patsy Cline never dies." Co-stars Joe Sears and Jaston Williams' talent for spinning tall-tales generates a community of pokey, parched lives whose regional prejudices do their best to convince you that this is the town the Enlightenment overlooked.

So what's a small town with a name like Tuna doing so far from home? Settling in for a six week run at the Charles Playhouse, the last leg of its national tour. Don't let the overalls and twangy y'all's fool you. For not having quite "made it on the map" yet, Greater Tuna, the fictitious name of Texas' third smallest town, comes to Boston with an impressive record of big-time successes, including six sold out weeks at the Kennedy Center, a year and a half in New York, and most recently, its debut at the Edinburgh International Festival. All this after it was first discovered playing in a sleepy Austin theatre to 50-seat audiences back in 1982.

In fact, the intimate setting of the Charles Playhouse perfectly accommodates the style of anecdotal confessions and informal sketches in which the story of a day in the life of Tuna is told. Sears and Williams, who also co-wrote the two-man show with director Ed Howard, conjure up the local color with their hilarious sketches: there's Bertha Bumiller, head of the local Smut-Snatching Society, in her green poly suit and orange bouffant wig; Petie Fiske, the woebegone rep from the Greater Tuna Humane Society and his homeless ducks; the toad-voiced chainsmoking Deedee Snavelly; the Rev. Spikes and his "remember the Alamo!" eulogies.

Sears is especially funny as the Bumiller siblings, a trio of screwed up adolescents whose main problem is boredom; there's Stanley, the reform school dropout, Jody, patron of the stray-puppy population, and their overweight sister Charlene, who's life is ruined because she'll never make cheerleader. The two-man show offers up some great lines, like when Mrs. Bumiller tries to offer the usual motherly consolation "wait until next year" to her depressed daughter, and Charlene points out that she's already a senior. The duo earned their three ovations opening night with their flawless ear for the idiosyncrasies of the 20 townsfolk they portray with not only versatility, but amazing speed.

The hilariously original satire on the closed-in sensibilities of Tuna's God-fearing Christians doesn't miss any of the familiar small town cliches: bigotry, hypocrisy, xenophobia, catty gossip, and the usual repressed instincts lurking under propriety. Even death in this tumbleweed town is a cause for excitement. Pearl Burris, the canincidal matron with a taste for strychnine stands in the funeral home, admiring the "lovely-looking corpse" of Judge Buckner, her long-ago Romeo, found dead in a Dale Evans one-piece swimsuit. Meanwhile, the latest word from Nadine's mother is that Nadine has run away again and that "if you see her on the road, you shouldn't run her over or pick her up." As the all-purpose radio announcers at station O-K-K-K, Sears and Williams serve up the most genuine brand of clueless humor since Canada's McKenzie brothers. At one point, they're on the air apologizing to their listeners for having lost the evening news.

What makes Greater Tuna's sense of humor honestly "American" is its sardonic yet down-to-earth spoof on what has become a revived common theme: family morality and the claustrophobic individual, the contemporary southern syndrome of small town suffocation. In Tuna, matters like segregation, Christian biology, and textbook censorship aren't issues--they're fact, as fundamental as hunting season and hell. The town's moral crusades attack hippies, the liberal press, and literary art with a zeal that makes the Conservative Club look tolerant.

This is Spoon River Anthology meets Saturday Night Live, an anachronistic blend of reckless humor and ironic pathos that goes down easiest when it's not taking itself too seriously. Unfortunately, they're only half-kidding when they promise to "warm the cockles of your heart." Following a fast-paced first act, the second half becomes weighed down in soul-searching soliloquies, a last try at serious reflection that comes too late in the show. Otherwise Greater Tuna's frank attitude that life is dull only if you think about it serves up raucous relief from postmodern boredom.