First, the good news: Circle Theatre’s new production of Jeff Daniels’ Escanaba in da Moonlight, a raucous comedy about some cooped-up deer hunters, is a fast-paced tall tale that kept its opening night audience howling uproariously all evening. The actors all give winning performances. The play, tightly directed by Bob Chambers, definitely has heart.
Now the bad news-which, of course, is just this one guy’s opinion. Despite the slickness of the production, I found this lowbrow laughfest tiresome and annoying. Yes, there is obviously an audience for such a show. I just don’t care to be in it.
Note the telling third word in the title: “da,” as in “duh,” which could be short for “Dumb and Dumber,” a film from the Jeff Daniels oevre.
I hate to come off all highbrow and elitist. I’ve long enjoyed slapstick and hick humor-as a kid I adored Ma & Pa Kettle and the Clampetts. I still split a gut over Moe, Larry, and Curly … and yes, sometimes Shemp. I miss Chris Farley. But this particular show worked my nerves.
If the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles is for you a pinnacle of Hollywood comedy and think you’d enjoy nonstop schtick involving flatulence, running jokes about speech impediments, sight gags of spitting and drooling and a game warden jumping around in his tidy whiteys, or junior high humor about “two-holers” (outhouses) or some well-endowed guy’s “third leg,” this show will be right up your alley.
Frankly, if I didn’t know this comedy was written by a movie actor with several decades of screen credits under his belt, I might have thought Jeff Daniels was some manic eighth-grader who penned his play during detention. The level of humor never rises above pratfalls and gross-out comedy. If these bumbling, backwoods morons aren’t passing gas so loudly the windows rattle or pointing rifles into the audience, they’re chugging a murky, milky concoction containing bugs, worms, and moose testicle or soaking themselves with porcupine pee for luck. Between their splattering frothy home brew and all the other god-awful liquids splashed around on stage, the first few rows of the audience really ought to be covered in plastic shower curtains like at the Blue Man Group or a Gallagher performance.
The story covers a ritualistic “guy weekend” during deer hunting season in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. That area is fondly dubbed “da U.P.”-hence, its residents are known as “Yoopers.” These guys speak a kind of thick “Yooperese” dialect, sorta singsong like dey talked in dat Fargo movie, don’cha know.
Escanaba in da Moonlight is part lowbrow comedy, part magical mystery tour. Just as the storyline seems like it will never take shape, Daniels provides some close encounters of the weird kind. After the hunters spend an hour guzzling Leinenkugel, playing euchre, passing gas and traipsing back and forth to the “two-holer,” the plot thickens with some strange goings-on that may involve Native American rituals-or is it extraterrestrials?
Maybe in the Upper Peninsula this stuff might keep folks rolling in the aisles with recognizable, off-the-wall local color absurdity, just as Tony and Tina’s Wedding does for a lot of Chicago audience members.
OK, I know. Lighten up, Doug. It’s just a play, and it’s making a lot of people howl their heads off. I agree we all need to laugh more, especially lately. But you have to wonder why an 11-year-old comedy is just now making its Chicago area premiere. I think I have the answer. It’s just not very good.
Perhaps I have a critical blind spot with material like this. I confess that ever since I was traumatized as a child when the hunters killed Bambi’s mother, I have been challenged to keep an open mind about those who hunt for sport. But when an over-the-top extended episode of flatulence becomes a veritable production number, I cease looking for the strengths of the show.
The cast, on the other hand, could not be better.
Jack McCabe does a great job as the family patriarch narrator, Albert Soady, who admits his boys “ain’t the sharpest tools in the drawer.”
The plot concerns the on-going failure of Albert’s oldest son, Reuben Soady, who has never shot his own buck. Reuben, well played by Stephen Loch, is the laughingstock of Escanaba. Known as “Da Buckless Yooper,” he’s convinced he’s somehow jinxed.
Reuben’s dopey brother, portrayed by Jason Huysman, hails the deer season as being like “Christmas with guns!”
Jay Olson is really incredibly funny as Jimmer, a family friend who was supposedly abducted by an alien spacecraft a while back and hasn’t talked right since. Jimmer often steals the show with his thick-tongued gibberish.
Yosh Hayashi is also hilarious as a hyper mounted ranger who thinks he’s seen the face of God.
Wolf Moon Dance, Reuben’s Native American wife, is played by Nilsa Reyna.
Bob Knuth’s well-dressed set is exceptionally realistic. This decrepit backwoods cabin has a wood-burning stove and bunk beds. The walls are covered with hubcaps, old license plates, gun racks, frying pans, stuffed fish and ‘possums, and about 15 sets of antlers.
The stage manager is Kate Danziger. Lighting is by Aimee Whitmore. Peter J. Storms designed the crisp and often eerie sound.
The play has been Jeff-recommended.
