Maybe we’re all cretins.
Or maybe we’re all 11-year-old boys, sixth-graders quick with a snicker where sex is concerned. Maybe we find the words "fuck" and "shit" infinitely funny. And equally hilarious is any number of references to Spam or Velveeta — jokes that never get tired — or to being "on the pot." Come to think of it, breasts are funny — especially breasts in pointy brassieres and pendulous breasts, and really big breasts that threaten to overflow their containers. Hey, this stuff’s a riot.
But then there’s something else — something so wildly entertaining that there’s just no limit to our glee: men in women’s clothes. Hey, you want comedy? You want pure theatrical spectacle that makes Julie Taymor and Phantom and Pilobolus seem amateur in comparison? Well, try this: a guy dressed as a slovenly middle-aged woman. And another guy dressed as a feline sexpot. And then — are you ready for this? — a guy dressed like a fat little girl! Can you stand it! Are your sides bursting?! Does it get any better than this?
Apparently not. Apparently all of theatrical history, human evolution and the progress of democratic institutions has led ineluctably to Lewis Routh’s Trailer Trash Tabloid!, the woefully unfunny monument to no-inspiration currently showing at the Jaeb Theater of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. This exercise in idiocy is all the more distressing because it’s presented with what looks like a great deal of premeditation, with wonderful design and about as much sincerity as you could want from a couple of performers. Can a juvenile, hackneyed and redundant script be produced with real artistry? Yes, I’m afraid so. But at the end of the evening, a sow’s ear is a sow’s ear. And anyway, why go to the theater at all when you can stay home and watch Benny Hill reruns?
The premise of Trailer Trash: We the audience are spectators at the Lamont Lazarus Hour, a tabloid TV show whose subject this evening is the unsolved murder of Velveeta magnate Frank Forkenberg (oh — Velveeta — I have to laugh!). In order to plumb the depths of this mystery, Lamont has invited Frank’s former neighbors, the residents of the New Drawl City Mobile Home Village and Putt-Putt Golf, to talk about life at the Village and what they know about the murder. Among the 12 interviewees — all played by quick-change artists Michael Holliday and John Kevin Jones — are Frank’s widow, big-haired Delilah Forkenberg; trampy waitress Norma Jean Schuster (owner of a pink flamingo nativity scene); Elvis impersonator Max McIntire; and terribly overweight little Rhoda Schuster.
To call what transpires on stage "interviews" is really overdoing it: What we actually witness are several monologues broken into alternating segments and directed at the audience. Most of the time, the two actors on stage never even acknowledge each other’s presence, and the logic that organizes their appearances is never quite clear.
What these characters do, for the most part, is tell jokes: stupid jokes, vulgar jokes, sophomoric jokes and repetitious jokes. On the subject of sex: "Does the camera love me or does your zoom lens always look like that?" On the subject of Spam and/or Velveeta: "Hon’, would you like that Spam fried?" On sex again: "Uncle Hiram was a pre-vert." On eating charcoal briquettes: "I wish they wouldn’t marinate them so — it gives me gas!" More about sex: "Have you ever been picked up by the fuzz? No, but I bet that would hurt!" On the Kennedy assassination: Didn’t that happen near the "Book Suppository"? On ethnic sex: "Latin men make me want to be a piñata." Back to Spam and Velveeta: "Velveeta gives me the Hershey-squirts."
Am I quoting the worst examples? Believe me, it’s a random sample. Am I missing the point, that it’s all supposed to be campy fun? See note on "sow’s ear," a few paragraphs back. All right, the spectators laughed lustily the night I saw the show. But that’s a pity and an embarrassment and no sort of indication of this or any play’s merits. As anyone who’s hung around the theater knows, cheap jokes usually get their laugh. That doesn’t make them any the less regrettable.
And speaking of regrettable, what a shame that actors Holliday and Jones are wasting their considerable talents on this tripe. Because these guys have talent, and it shines in spite of the material, around the edges, you might say. I’d even call Holliday’s skills extraordinary — I can easily imagine him excelling in Shakespeare or Molière or Joe Orton or David Ives.
Special too are Skip Stewart’s outrageous costumes, from voracious Maxine McIntire’s leopard bodysuit to Norma Jean Schuster’s pneumatic décolletage, from Max McIntire’s ridiculous take on late Elvis to Rhoda Schuster as a frighteningly obese Shirley Temple. Tabloid’s set of cartoon-like mobile home sections is wonderfully appropriate, and author Routh’s direction, while overly simplistic at times, nicely emphasizes spontaneity and rapport with the audience. In other words, there’s a lot of good theater here, spent on a lot of bad drama.
The result is not a silk purse.
Trailer Trash Tabloid: think of it as an ode to the mediocrity in all of us.
I have to go to these shows. You don’t. ’Nuff said.
Of Twins and Men. Opening this weekend at Gorilla Theatre is the one of the most unusual musicals you’re likely to see. Side Show, which was performed on Broadway in 1998, is about Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, about their rise to legitimate fame in vaudeville and about the men who loved them. You think you’ve got privacy issues? Watch Sideshow and count your blessings. Side Show runs Thursdays-Sundays Oct. 25-Nov. 18 at Gorilla Theatre, 4419 N. Hubert Ave., Tampa. Tickets are $25, $20 students/seniors. Call 813-879-2914.
New Kid in Town. There’s a new theater aficionado in the Tampa Bay area. Jeremy Benjamin Leib arrived on this stage-which-is-the-world at 2:13 a.m. Oct. 16. Critic that he is, he took one look around and started wailing. A couple of days later, he was seen relaxing in his mother’s arms, exuding contentment. So his first, negative review was followed by a rave. God willing, he’ll find much more to praise in the years to come.
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2001.