In the third smallest town in Texas, where the Lions Club roars and Patsy Cline never dies, something fun is bound to happen.
In “Greater Tuna,” the fictional comedy by Joe Sears, Jaston Williams and Ed Howard that opens Saturday at Cumberland County Playhouse, something fun does happen and with great frequency.
“It’s just funny,” said director John Fionte. “Every once in a while, you need that.”
The comedy satire on life in rural America opens the CCP’s 45th season.
The eclectic citizens of Tuna, Texas, man, woman, adult, child, even animal, are played by two actors, former Chattanoogan Jason Ross and Daniel Black. Each of the two plays 10 characters in a blitz of costumes and quick changes.
“It’s a very accessible style of humor,” said Fionte, who is directing the show for the first time.
He compared the appeal of such a play to that of television variety shows such as “The Carol Burnett Show,” which was a CBS ratings hit in the late 1960s and throughout most of the 1970s.
“Part of the joy of watching these sketches – and it is structurally sort of sketch comedy – is seeing the same recognizable actors in outlandish getups and playing over-the-top characters,” Fionte said.
Such a show is fun but trying for actors, the director explained.
“It’s a difficult type of script to memorize because you are not necessarily following out one single plot line,” he said. “You’ve got so many different characters and relationships and stories.”
Ross will be playing the opposite set of characters than those he portrayed the last time the CCP presented “Greater Tuna,” said Fionte.
“When you get into the thick of the performance,” he said, “it’s just one crazy madhouse from the moment the first curtain goes up to intermission,” he said. “It’s quite exhausting.”
A good dresser is essential to such a play, Fionte said.
“The changes are lightning fast,” he said. “Several of them are under 10 seconds. I think one came in at six seconds.”
It’s a treat to watch,” Fionte said.
“To watch that theatrical wizardry of actors switching from one character to another, and really completely portraying a change of voice, a change of body language – the pace is different, the accent is different – to see that happen with such lightning speed is really quite captivating,” he said.