The mix of comedy, parody, and commomplace satire which typifies the television sit-com is hard to achieve in the live theatre. While there is a "studio" audience, there's no laugh track and the warm-up has to occur as the show proceeds. Most television scripts are the product of group effort and there may be a touch too much of that in George Sauer's full-length effort, "Heading for Eureka" currently premiering at the BCA. It's been developed under the aegis of CentAstage's associated playwrighting program and is directed by Darren Evans who shepherded the show's developmental readings. The input of the other participants may have contributed to this piece which, although continuously entertaining, is somewhat over written . The story unfolds more as a series of blackout sketches, with no real through line of action. Rather the plot--or what passes for one--parodies the serial family comedies that have infested television since its beginning without really exploring the consequences. The four main characters, mother, father, son and daughter are derived from the same tradition, with characteristics pasted on as needed. This approach harks back to the commedia tradition, and more recently the sketch comedy tradition that migrated from vaudeville to radio, but lacks the discipline which generated archetypes from the 16th century on.
On the positive side, the cast for this production can each make the most of such givens. Local theatre veterans Dale Place and IRNE winner Maureen Keiller play their parts, George and Martha, to the hilt, playing the audience along wwith the play. Place was seen most recently at the BCA in Sugan;s valedictory "Talking to Terrorists" while Keiller just closed in Boston Theatre Works "The Sweetest Swing in Baseball." As their children, Dick and Jane, Theatre Coop stalwart Michael Avellar and Emerson grad Allison Colby fall into sibling rivalry with a vengance. All four become a "believable" sit-com family and then take the character variations in the second half in stride.
The other two members of the cast have different tasks. IRNE nominee Jeff Gill plays Grandpappy, a failed cowboy actor turned desert motel keeper, who's fallen deeply into his role. By the end of the show he lapses into "King Lear" and Chekov. Adam Soule from Improv Asylum is plays Mork, Gill's adopted grandson, who spends the first act tracking the family through the desert dressed as an Injun, reporting their whereabouts--presumably to Grandpappy--over a walkie-talkie. During the second half, having impregnated randy Jane, he morphs into an Eminnem dude and then a Hassid, before revealing he's actually an alien--what a surprise--setting up the climax. As well as Soule handles all these changes, they represent a writing strategy which replaces development with novelty. Similarly, versatile Place plays various roles in the second half, including Grandma, with little logic to support most of them, which may leave the audience a bit too puzzled. The result of the cast's effort is a lot of laughs, some applaudable moments, but very little to ponder. If the author has anything to say about family dynamics, it gets lost in the cleverness.
The show is well set against Wellesley Summer Theatre's Ken Loewit's painted desert backdrop and cut-out wings done in cartoon style, along with a movable cactus and a rolling tumbleweed. Jeff Adelberg from B.C. provides clear lighting and a few appropriate effects. Elizabeth Tustian, whose work's been seen most for the Vokes Players, provides the cast with costumes which enhance their mercurical performances. Director Evans keeps things moving along from blackout to blackout. For a premiere of a work which should be considered still in development, "Heading for Eureka" makes an entertaining evening, and might evolve into a memorable comedy if the metamorphoses in the second half can be attached to the situation in the first.
Sauer's show is certainly much further along than the juvenile effort being displayed at Durrell Hall for the next two weekends. "The Churchyard Motel", written and directed by Marc Frost, has many of the same problems but almost no virtues. This melodrama tries to emulate a Brechtian satire, even down to some songs which might be helpful if anyone in the cast could really sing. The author did a show with Rough & Tumble, but doesn't seem to realize how much practice that company and its director have had in their cinematic style and off-hand comedy. Frost's show was workshopped at Tufts and has some of the catchall qualities that seem to result when too many cooks toss in ingredients. "Heading for Eureka" may get somewhere eventually; "The Churchyard Motel" needs drastic help to make it through its current run.