Uptown Players | Dallas, Texas




Down South
August 15–31, 2003 Directed by - Andi Allen Set Design - Andy Redmon Lighting Design - Julie Simmons Costume Design - Suzi Shankle and Bill Bullard Sound Design - Andi Allen

Cast : Cara Serber**, Diane Worman, Marisa Diotalevi, Nye Cooper, Paul J Williams**, David Plunkett

** Member of Actors Equity Association

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Photographs by Mark Oristano

Review

Perry Stewart, Star-Telegram (Excerpt)

You need to know right upfront, good people, that Down South, the comedy that Uptown Players opened Friday night, does not reflect the Southern values of Robert E. Lee, William Faulkner or even that nasty Tennessee Williams.

The compass direction in the title of this one is anatomical – as in below the belt. Get it? Director Andi Allen does, and she has crafted a gleeful and bawdy staging of this romp set in Erie, Pa., during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Bob and Jennifer are a cartoon couple who dress and speak like characters in a TV commercial of the era. It's ultra-campy from the get-go, and you wonder whether the actors can sustain it. They do, matching Field outrage for outrage.

The possibility of nuclear holocaust causes Jennifer to realize that her sex life with Bob is less than explosive. Her voyage of self-discovery is the focus of Down South. Cara Statham Serber makes the journey a trip to bountiful laughter. Her wide-eyed, deadpan delivery is bravo-worthy. David Plunkett, as Bob, sets up the gags with a smugly puritanical stance.

And Allen has assembled a superb ensemble: Marisa Diotalevi and Nye Cooper; Diane Worman and Paul J. Williams. Williams doesn't appear until the second act, and his entrance prompts sustained laughter that the actor milks artfully. Allen also choreographed a marvelous dinner "ballet" and a hilarious dance medley.

Review

Arnold Wayne Jones, Dallas Voice (Excerpt)

When perky Erie, Pa., housewife Jennifer Barnes (Cara Statham Serber) appears on stage in Down South, she twirls through her living room like the lovely Carol Merrill demonstrating the fabulous prizes behind curtain No. 2 on Let's Make a Deal. Things could not be more perfect in this postwar Stepford home, which is, of course, exactly what's wrong. It is October 1962, and JFK and the Russians have taken us to the brink of annihilation over Cuba.

The creepy disconnect between the hard reality of a situation and the sitcom-y, carefree attitudes of the characters in Down South doesn't just apply just to the Cold War, but to the frigidity in suburban bedrooms. Considering that married couples from Ricky and Lucy to Rob and Laura managed to produce children despite sleeping in twin beds, just hearing words like cunnilingus and masturbation come out of the mouths of their counterparts provides ample opportunity for humor, and Down South milks ever inappropriate joke it can.

Director Andi Allen's track record (Ruthless!, Sordid Lives, Cowboys) proves that she revels in cheeky comedy. Here, she aims for the subtlety of a minstrel show and hits the target dead-on. Doug Field's script certainly lays the groundwork for her madcap style, with awful-wonderful double entendres. Diane Worman, who plays the nosy Sue Stevens, wears white shoes after Labor Day and a wig that makes her look like Sally Rogers from The Dick Van Dyke Show. She's a walking punchline. Nye Cooper's Eddie is fat and gruff talking and as edgy as a Coen Brothers gangster. Both are hilarious – the entire cast is. Plunkett correctly plays Bob as a caricature, speaking with robotic precision and offering only dull exclamations like Robin on the old Batman series. Paul J. Williams injects a flighty spark into act two as a Christopher Lowell-type closet case. Serber and Marisa Diotalevi give accomplished, zany performances, full of clever details.

The set design is one of the best elements, if only because it is evocative and era-appropriate. Front and center is the old solid-state television. Spoofs of sitcom suburbia aren't exactly rare, but this play manages to squeeze out a disproportionately large number of laughs in a quick 90 minutes.