Best Medicine Rep stands out among our newer small theatre companies for location (a store space on the upper level of Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg) and for mission: they will only present comedies. Laughter, after all, being the best medicine.
It’s a commendable mission. Comedy writers get to showcase for their works, while local folks get a chance to see pieces that might not be produced in a larger venue.
Sadly, their latest, Helen On Wheels by Oregon playwright Cricket Daniel, written in 2015, manages to feel unfinished.
Daniel’s dream, she states on her website, is to write TV sitcoms and she seems to have veered into sitcom territory with this play. It would certainly be a passable one – cardboard characters, impossibly snappy banter that leads nowhere, the bada-bing-punchline format and the complete U-turn of established personalities to serve as the delivery system for a zinger.
As the seventies-something title character Helen, Liz Weber grabs our attention from the get-go, with an energetic jail breakout courtesy of her best friend Zona (Carol Randolf). Her love of guns and whiskey and disregard for the law when it comes to bingo winnings is fun to watch.
The other three characters are but shadow puppets. Terrence Heffernan, as Seth the sheriff (and Zona’s son), has good comic timing, but Seth’s just a cartoon on which to hang some jokes. Nelson (Nicholas Allen), a lawyer and Helen’s son, is tasked with bringing his mother in line, but one wonders about his success as an attorney when all he does here is nag. And poor Bill Hurlbut, as Elmer, is merely a cipher: as the new bachelor in town, Elmer is written with virtually nil personality of his own yet manages to corral colorful Helen in a birthday-party whose ending is so hackneyed that it’s almost insulting.
Added to the overly familiar plot though, is the underlying message (and make no mistake, even comedies need a message): in order to be happy, you have to have someone. Apparently, it can be anyone. Though Helen seems to be doing just fine on her own in Act 1, living it up spunky grandma-style (more on that in a minute), by Act 2 she’s lonely, despondent and needy.
The switch from spunky (wait a sec, I’ll get to it) to grieving widow who wants her grown son to move back home is not only completely contrary to the Helen in Act 1, it just ain’t how us old folks talk or think these days, kids. Most 70-somethings aren’t the wet noodle that Daniel writes: and you can’t have it both ways, first spunky and then super-needy. And only younger folks call mature people spunky, and No, We Do Not Like It. And the idea that a woman isn’t complete without a man? That went out with the dinosaurs, and it’s startling to have a woman writer have that as the centerpiece of her comedy.
Helen on Wheels closes October 6, 2019. Details and tickets
Director Kelsey Yudice never seems to have told the actors to rein it in; overacting is the name of the game here, and more than once characters did bugeyed takes straight to the audience, shattering the fourth wall in a way that wasn’t so much funny as uncomfortable.
But there are some genuine laughs to be had: Weber in particular knows how to deliver a line, and through the mess of the seen-it-before plot, there are glimmerings of what the play could have been.
As to production values, I was pleasantly surprised: the costumes by director Kelsey Yudice are decent, and the set by Alison Mark manages to give the small performance space a good imitation of a small house that’s been lived in for decades. Lighting and Sound by John Morogiello is of necessity simple, but there are some nicely done sound effects that garnered more than a few chuckles.
I’d like this small company to succeed- they have chutzpah enough to, their actors seem up to the task and God knows, we could use the laughs. Maybe next time.
Helen on Wheels by Cricket Daniel . Directed by Kelsey Yudice . Cast: Nicholas Allen as Nelson; Terrence Heffernan as Seth; Liz Weber as Helen; Carol Randolph as Zona; Bill Hurlbut as ElmerCostumes: Kelsey Yudice . Sound & Lighting Design: John Morogiello . Props: Lynn Sharp Spears . House Manager: Lily Magdamo . Stage Manager: Karen Dugard . Produced by Best Medicine Rep . Reviewed by Jill Kyle-Keith.
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