Sept. 11-12, 2009

Just another evening at the Leland Hotel and Saloon in the year 1880. The usual cowboys and “ladies” are enjoying a nice dinner and a whiskey. Only this night…murder is on the menu! Murder and Mayhem never takes a break! The ticket price of $30/person includes dinner, dessert, beer and wine. For reservations please leave a message at 979-823-4297. Your phone reservation will be confirmed.
Tickets may also be purchased at the Arts Council of Brazos Valley at 2275 Dartmouth in College Station. (979) 696-2787

By TOM TURBIVILLE
tom.turbiville@theeagle.com

The dozen actors who make up the cast of StageCenter’s All in the Timing are going to need a long nap when this run is over.

There are lots of lines to absorb, characters to create and physical shtick to pull off, and this is the toughest sort of live stage delivery there is — comedy.

“There’s a lot of energy involved in this,” director Reid Self said. “Like the title suggests, it is all in the timing. The pacing is critical and there’s a lot theatricality in the performance style.”

Think about it — with a drama, the performers can’t necessarily hear if the audience is holding back tears or mesmerized by the dialogue, or convinced the bad guy’s bad, the good guy’s good or the damsel is distressed.

But with live comedy, it’s all instant feedback. To those actors, the difference between roll-in-the-aisles laughter and polite forced giggling can be deafening. If it’s funny, they know, and if it’s not, they really know — there’s no place to hide.

Self says that’s not an issue with this final offering of the 2008-09 StageCenter season. “If you like to laugh, you will love All in the Timing,” he promises.

It started Thursday but has six more shows: Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 the next two weeks.

So bring on the challenge of All in the Timing, the six one-act comedic plays written by 59-year-old American David Ives — modern, contemporary, funny stuff, all penned between 1987 and 1993.

All in the Timing has a cast of 12, with StageCenter veteran and long-time local DJ Harold Presley playing four parts, William Myrick playing three, Larry Boozer and Maggie McGraw playing two each, and Braden Deckard playing a supporting role in three of the plays. Gina Reinhardt, Amy Ressler, Nancy Woods, Amber Tolson, Judy McCoy, Chuck Beard and Evelyn Callaway are featured in one each.

“Most of them are only in one scene because I knew how demanding it would be,” Self said. “But Harold Presley is on stage in three of the scenes and his voice is used in another. He gets quite a workout.”

Sure Thing leads it off, the setting being a cafe where the disconnection, but eventual connection, between characters Bill (played by Myrick) and Betty (played by Reinhardt this week and Ressler the final week) and the bell ringer (Presley). In their late 20s, their conversation stops, starts, restarts and awkwardly finds itself sparking true love.

Words, Words, Words brings together three monkeys, Swift (Boozer), Milton (Tolson) and Kafka (Woods), along with Dr. Rosenbaum (Myrick). The premise here is that if three monkeys pound their typewriters for a long enough period of time, the result could be Hamlet.

Up third is The Philadelphia, which some reviewers have called the funniest of the six. Mark (Myrick) experiences “a Philadelphia,” where he wakes up with a severe headache but the drug store doesn’t sell aspirin, the taxis travel the wrong direction and the newsstands don’t sell the local tabloid. The only way to get good service at the diner is to yell a vulgarity at the waitress.

In other words, in The Philadelphia, the world is made right by the art of reverse psychology. Al (Presley) and the waitress (Maggie McGraw) support Mark in his efforts to make sense of it all.

Following intermission the fourth short is The Universal Language and features the stuttering young woman Dawn (Ressler) and her interaction with Don (Presley), who has invented and instructs the comedic language called Unamunda, the language billed as one that will unite all humankind. As with the other parts of All in the Timing, this one’s all in the delivery of a tough script to memorize but hysterical to hear.

“This is the most demanding part of the six vignettes, where Harold has to communicate in this completely made-up language,” Self said. “Imagine memorizing lines of a language that doesn’t even exist.”

In Variations on the Death of Trotsky, famous Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky (Boozer) lives, only to die several times after his Mexican gardener splits his skull with an ax. With the ax planted in his head, the play features quick scenes, each presenting Trotsky writing a different version of his own death. Along for the ride are Mrs. Trotsky (McCoy) and Ramon (McGraw).

Finally, English Made Simple is the story of Jack and Jill (Beard and Callaway), with the off-stage analytic voice (Presley) that explains what the young couple is really thinking as they make small talk at a party.

“The only thing that connects the six is the word play, the sense of playful time and the language that David Ives experiments with,” Self said. “Other than that, they each stand alone.”

“It’s quite a challenge for the actors and the director,” he said. “It’s like directing six different plays.”

Advance tickets are available at the Arts Council of Brazos Valley, at 2275 Dartmouth St. in College Station. All Thursday night tickets are $6, Friday and Saturday are $10 for adults and $8 for seniors and students.