The first play's funniest conflict was an attempt to get a shy, unattractive, method actor (Danny Ladas), who never made love in his life, to disrobe in a Francis Ford Coppola smut film; and to have him partner an S&M transvestite played by Bruce Meyerson -- an actor who hasn't learned to make someone believable on stage.
Ladas was quite genuine and funny. Megan Folsom and Stephanie Courtney, as awesome feminists, stayed around just long enough to complicate the puerile action.
Scott Tobin brought a few humorous moments to the thankless Coppola part. But Gregory Funaro furiously pushed his producer's role like a heavy broom across the stage.
In the second one-act, a children's theatre director (Larry Morns), confined to a wheelchair for no comedic reason, seriously needs a gun to deal with his cast -- one of whom (Susan Stout) borders on paranoia. Unhappily, no gun was introduced, and so the audience just had to endure the actors' empty threats to quit the show.
In this play Norman Siopsis, who was the real-life producer/director/stage-manager/lights-and-tape-recorder-operator/ticket-seller of the evening, wore his acting hat (literally, and with panache), revealing that he could be doing Moose Murders in Massachusetts. Another character (Lesley A. Killian) could be stage-managing in Florida.
Take the paying jobs, guys!
The eponymous character called "Bippy," a humped, ^outrageously gay, inebriated Richard III in clown costume, was played to the hilt by Bill King. At one point Bippy attaches an electrician's box (real box -- imaginary wires) to his ass to operate the lights. The concept was so ridiculous and inept, it took on the diabolical power to hysterically convulse some members of the audience. (As will a man in a lampshade -- if it's a really funny lampshade.)
The costumes were sometimes imaginative, but the sets were not. The lights and music cues were often late or incorrect.
The director's presentation, though talented, was more suitable for circus than for theatre. People screamed at one another, and sometimes got so intense they looked as if they were going to barf. One actor twirled his head around so fast one hoped he had an exorcist or at least a physical therapist to undo the damage.
All this energy was expended in a valiant effort to pound life into a pair of tubercular lungs. The relentless action just broke too many ribs.
Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger