Couple opens can on small-town life in 'Tuna'

by Caroline Connors

The cold winter air was blowing across the bustling intersection of 111th Street and Western Avenue last weekend, but inside the Beverly Arts Center (BAC) on Friday and Saturday nights, the air was warm and the pace was slow as theatergoers were treated to a slice of life in a rural hamlet in the South.

“Greater Tuna,” a play written in the early 1980s by Joe Sears, Jaston Williams and Ed Howard, is based on the fictional Tuna, the third smallest town in the state of Texas that has more than its share of eccentric residents. These colorful characters, skillfully portrayed by local actors Anthony Whitaker and Diane Honeyman on Jan. 29-30, will make a second weekend appearance at the BAC on Feb. 5-6 at 8 p.m.

A wooden wall displaying a red, white and blue cut-out of the state of Texas, a table and two chairs set the scene for a humorous day in the life of the town’s 20 residents during the two-act, 90-minute performance on Jan. 31. With lightning-quick costume changes, the two actors took on the task of portraying a variety of characters—men, women and even a dog named Yippy—while seamlessly transporting the audience to the nooks and crannies of Greater Tuna and into the personal lives of the people who inhabit it.

A satire of redneck America, the play features caricatures of everyday folks who are unabashedly bigoted and smallminded. While probably not typical of the people encountered in the schools, businesses and homes of the multi-ethnic neighborhoods that make up the city of Chicago, the characters possess a heart-warming humanity that is sure to be both familiar and likeable to all audiences, no matter the location of the venue.

For instance, despite a Daffy Duck-like lisp and an obsession with all creatures great and small, Petey Fisk, the head of the Greater Tuna Humane Society, has a heart of gold that tempers his otherwise oddball rantings. Housewife Bertha Bumiller is a proud citizen who wants the book “Roots” banned from the shelves of the library because “it only tells one side of the slavery issue,” but is also the conscientious yet beleaguered mother of three children with idiosyncrasies of their own: Jody, who is regularly followed home by stray dogs and then offers them a permanent home in the backyard; Charlene, who cannot get over her bad fortune at not making the cheerleading squad; and Stanley, a ne’erdo- well who claims to be attending trade school but who has been spotted hanging out in his car in front of the grocery store all day.

In Greater Tuna, radio hosts Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie of station OKKK discuss all the news— auditions for the local play that for the first time will include “Negroes and Mexican- Americans,” the high school football team’s 48-0 loss in a “close” game, and the high school essay contest entitled, “Human Rights: Why Bother?”—before goodnaturedly realizing that they have, yet again, forgotten to flip the switch that puts them on the air.

Lighthearted humor— Petey Fisk explaining that “fish feel pain; they’re just very subtle about expressing it,” for example—kept the audience chuckling throughout the show, and the actors’ precision timing kept the mood light despite the foray into uncomfortable subjects like racism. Even when the humor took a few dark twists, such as when Stanley Bumiller admitted to the murder of a judge who had sentenced him for a petty crime (he killed the judge by injecting air bubbles into his veins with a syringe while the judge was sleeping), the effect was neither awkward nor morbid.

A veteran of the Theater on the Lake’s rendition of “Greater Tuna,” Whitaker studied opera at the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina before coming to Chicago, where he has performed at the Royal George, Bailiwick Repertory, and other venues. He recently developed, directed and performed in “The Lion’s Roar: A Revue of MGM Musicals” at the BAC and teaches music locally at St. Benedict and St. Walter elementary schools.

Honeyman, a professional actor, teacher and director for more than 25 years, was recently seen as Jane Byrne in the long-running hit, “Hizzoner,” and recently directed a children’s production of “The Jungle Book” at the BAC.

The original play, written and performed by Williams, Sears and Howard, opened in 1982 and had a successful run off-Broadway and was performed in the White House twice for President George Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.

This is part of the February 3, 2010 online edition of The Beverly Review.

Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you. Click here.