For some odd reason Blogger isn't letting me put a title on this so the title is:

"Greater Tuna"

Theatre Decatur's production of "Greater Tuna" wasn't as bad as it really could have been. But the audience, I'm sure, was thankful that the show lasted only an hour and 40 minutes tops.

The story jumps from the set of a radio station in Tuna, Texas, to the dining room of a family's house to a funeral parlor to different radio ads to a humane society's office to the sheriff's office. All with the set being a stationary, non-changing piece with big words center stage "WKKK." It was difficult to know if this play was mostly about the radio station, or the family, or the murder of the judge - even with the lights changing it was just very hard to know when they were on the radio and when they weren't. What would have been better on this set would have been three playing areas: one for the radio station, one for the family's house and one for every other scene.
The two gentlemen that play all the characters, Mr. Chuck Richards and Mr. Jim Marks, did their very best to provide entertainment within this realm of ever-changing situations. Chuck was very engaging to watch and very focused with the audience. His breaking of the fourth wall as the mother character was kind aodd, but as the reverend, he was dead-on with the Baptist South. Jim did not follow as well. His characters were very one-demensional and even in drag, he seemed to be concentrating more on his words than the entertainment of his characters.

As for writing in the script, there were some decent one-liners. If delivered right, this would have been a very memorable play on the positive side. There was a couple of sections about a dog named Yippee where Jim was a character talking to Yippee and Chuck was the voice "yipping" behind paper or backstage. It didn't work. Not when the audience was already introduced to something called "sound effects" controlled from the booth.

Costume-wise, the green and white dress that Jim's character had on at one point was gorgeous and perfect. On the opposite end of that, the cow print costume that Jim had on as the teenager cheerleader-wanna-be was a definite "no" - not appropriate at all for the scene.

At the funeral parlor, it was very clear where the judge was lying. The two actors on stage were not consistent with the area of the coffin and the direction in which he was laying. This was true with them both on stage and when one was gone. At times it was as if they were walking over or through the coffin to change places on stage. It was weird.

Between the two acts, Act II was more entertaining than I. God bless the boys for trying, but the show was not something I'd have people pay money to see.