Runs through Oct. 26 at Stageworks Theatre, 1120 E. Kennedy Blvd., Channel District, Tampa; show times Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. $30. 813-374-2416, stageworkstheatre.org
Langston Hughes’s defiant vow — “America will be!” — is a clarion call for Franco Wicks. The aspiring young writer, a key character in Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts, has borrowed it for the title of his own novel, a bundle of manuscripts tied together with string that he hopes will be his ticket out of inner-city poverty in Chicago. His boss at the donut shop where he works, a morose 60-year-old Polish-American named Arthur Przybyszewski (Arthur P for short), recognizes his writing talent but discourages him from trying to do anything with it — because, in Arthur’s lifetime of missed opportunities and failed connections, hope is not to be trusted. “The core of the Polish character,” he says at one point,
“is hopelessness.”
That pessimistic undercurrent notwithstanding, the world of Superior Donuts feels almost unrealistically rosy. Thugs don’t have guns, victims fight back and win, a real estate deal pays off. And the characters hover just this side of stereotype: the faded ex-hippie draft evader, the African-American kid with untapped potential, the affable Irish bookie, the salty Russian emigre, the homeless woman who’s prone to pearls of wisdom.
But you know what? It works. Letts, a longtime Chicagoan, brings deep affection and authentic detail to the play’s milieu. His themes — racial and ethnic divides, economic inequality, the nature of cowardice, evasion vs. involvement — are explored organically, not thumped upon hard. And as anyone knows who saw Letts’s Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County, he writes richly comic, character-driven lines that good actors devour like so many tasty donuts (or “dessert cakes,” as Franco insists on calling them).
The actors in Stageworks’ well-cast production dive into Letts’s dialogue with gusto, for the most part. As Arthur P, Jim Wicker is at first so low-key as to disappear before our eyes, but he subtly moves from withdrawal to conviction — and shines particularly in Arthur’s tender, tentative courtship of a lady cop, Officer Randy (Roxanne Fay, all rough-edged sweetness), and in his prickly relationship with employee turned protege Franco, played by Travis Brown. A senior at Tampa’s Blake High School making his professional theater debut, Brown is a real find. A charismatic, kinetic performer, he makes the fast-talking, one-upping, never-stop-moving Franco a real charmer, but also finds the innocence and the scared kid inside.
Richard Coppinger is hilariously on point as Max, Arthur’s real estate-hungry, vodka-fueled Russian neighbor. Josh Goff is solidly convincing as Randy’s fellow police officer James (and very funny when James’s Star Trek fandom comes up). Peter J. Konowicz as the smooth-tongued bookie with a stomach ulcer from too much “empathy” and Michael Mekus as his young henchman make for a benignly menacing team; Dawn Truax is appropriately salty as the hard-of-hearing homeless alcoholic, Lady Blake; and Tim Guerrieri is endearing in a small role as Max’s hulking
nephew Kiril.
Director Ron Bobb-Semple deftly modulates the comic comings and goings in Arthur’s donut shop and the quieter moments when Arthur talks directly to the audience, lit sensitively by Mike Wood. Melinda Kajando’s costumes are mostly credible (I especially liked Kiril’s Sean John sweatsuit), with the exception of Arthur’s unfortunate grey ponytailed wig. Though it is the source of one of the funniest exchanges in the play, it’s distractingly shiny-smooth and, well, wiggy. I was hoping Arthur would take Franco’s advice and cut off the ponytail (hence no need for the wig) by the second act, but no such luck.
But that’s a small quibble. In moments like Arthur’s heartbreaking admission of failure at fatherhood — “You have to have hope to raise a kid” — we’re not worrying about his wig. And finally, when he finds a way to rescue Franco’s deferred dreams, we see that maybe, even if he’s not willing to abandon that ponytail, he may have discovered the ability to hope.
A caveat: The play, which was written in 2008, is dated, culinarily speaking. At one point, Max, trying to persuade Arthur to sell his business, declares: “No one eats donuts!” Judging by — just to name a few, Perk’s in Tampa, Hole in St. Pete (whose “dessert cakes” were featured on last week’s CL cover), and Datz Dough (whose delicious doughnuts are being served at Stageworks during intermissions) — times have changed.
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2014.