LOS
ANGELES TIMES
Sept.
3, 2004
THEATER
BEAT
If
Sam Shepard wrote an episode of "King of the Hill," or "Northern
Exposure" had been set in Montana, the result might resemble Robert
Tobin's shaggy-dog story of a play, "Western Big Sky."
Set
chiefly in a ramshackle tavern run by a violently bickering couple, Hank (Britt
George) and Dorothy (Barbara Bragg), the play spins out a series of unlikely
confrontations, transgressive clinches and drunken exchanges among a gallery of
outsized characters, from a trailer-trash hippie (Dan Mandel) to an
unreconstructed latter-day cowboy (Tyler Tanner), from a mellow, erudite Native
American (Rex Lee) to a pair of goth Satanists (Robert Benjamin and playwright
Tobin).
It's
to Tobin's credit that none of these potential stereotypes quite lives down to
the expected cliches. The show's nominal hero--an impudent non-conformist named
Bill (Donald Osborne), who says of his aimless existence, "There's gotta
be more"--turns out to be a bit of a goofball, while two of the tavern's
more sedentary onlookers, Taylor (William Morton) and Cody (Kipp Chambers),
take on unexpected dimensions, if not what you'd call depth. And one light-in-his-boots
cowpoke (Victor Yerrid) harbors a less well-kept secret.
After
a while the play's surprises tend to settle into a rhythm of willful
quirkiness. And while director L. Flint Esquerra gives the proceedings a tone
of droll whimsy that is genuinely funny, the play's darker strains are
awkwardly integrated; a pair of shooting deaths barely register, either as
tragedy or as absurd accident.
Still,
for laughs that flow and fizz as easily as beer, "Western Big Sky"
makes a fine libation.
--Rob Kendt
"Western
Big Sky," the Met Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford St., Hollywood. 8 p.m.
Fridays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Oct. 2. $15. (323) 957-1152. Running
time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.