‘Laughing Stock’ all about blunders
The Spokane Civic Theatre’s new comedy, “Laughing Stock,” follows the often-disastrous exploits of The Playhouse, a summer-stock theater company in New England.
A group of theatrical misfits is attempting to do rotating productions of “Charley’s Aunt,” “Dracula” and “Hamlet.” The only trouble is, they don’t have enough money – or talent – to pull it off.
The result, according to reviews of the premier production in 2001, is an unending string of missed cues, dropped lines, botched entrances and over-the-top acting.
In other words, Charles Morey’s “Laughing Stock” continues in the backstage comedy tradition of “Noises Off,” “Lend Me a Tenor,” “Moon Over Buffalo” and other farces of theater-gone-bad.
“A lot of accidents happen,” said director Troy Nickerson. “A lot of shtick, a lot of bits. All of it has to be pretty well choreographed.”
It takes talent to make it all look disastrous. The cast includes many of Spokane’s top actors, including Patrick McHenry-Kroetch, Thomas Heppler, Paul Villabrille, David Gigler and Susan Hardie.
“Laughing Stock” had its world premiere in 2001 at the Pioneer Theatre Company, the professional company in residence at the University of Utah, where Morey is the artistic director.
“The delightful thing is that Morey strikes a balance between a depiction of everything that can and usually does go wrong … and a genuinely affectionate look at the magic that holds theater companies together,” wrote the Event, a newspaper in Salt Lake City.
Each of The Playhouse’s plays is shown from a different perspective: “Charley’s Aunt” in rehearsal, “Dracula” in performance and “Hamlet” from backstage.
“Laughing Stock” was nominated for the American Theatre Critics Association’s New Play Award in 2001 and was subsequently staged by theaters around the country – including a few summer-stock theater companies.
“Everyone in the theater has their own ‘Playhouse’: the place where there was never enough of anything, where sometimes the doors fell off their hinges and the sound cues ran backwards, but where you gave yourself over wholly to the making of plays,” said Morey in a statement.
“It is those people, and especially those places, this play celebrates.”
“It definitely has a message about people who do theater and the families they create,” said Nickerson.
The Civic cast also includes Nancy Gasper, Tanya Barton, Michael Nelson, Penny Lucas, Gavin Smith, Benjamin Lee, David Hardie, Karen Terpak and Joe VanderWeil.