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Peer Reviews A Year in the Death of Eddie Jester By T. Gregory Argall Reviewed by Keith Waits Entire contents copyright © 2009, Keith Waits, all rights reserved.
Eddie Jester is a stand-up comedian who finds himself in a coma after being mugged and brutally assaulted. Over the course of a year we watch his wife and girlfriend, both newly pregnant, struggle to cope with the situation of Eddie's condition, while his milquetoast manager, Max, uneasily navigates the quicksand surrounding them. Meanwhile, his doctor and nurse use his room to conduct a shameless and highly indiscreet affair. The idea that Eddie himself provides caustic commentary on the action, as if it was all just so much new material for his act, lends a surreal quality to the story. Mostly he is removed from the physical world of the other, fully awake characters, yet often he works strenuously, albeit fruitlessly, to push and prod them, often to hilarious effect. Utilizing the nightclub environs of Fuzion, the staging suffers somewhat from the limited lighting capabilities in the action taking place around the hospital bed, but the neon and strobe effects are perfectly suited to Eddie's monologues. He is repeatedly introduced by an announcer with much show-biz fanfare as he plucks a microphone from its stand and stalks the thrust stage, speaking directly to the audience in the desperate manner of a comic struggling to win over a tough crowd, the merciless spotlight following him as he reexamines the life and relationships that are now lost to him. The first act is played for laughs, as we watch the two women in Eddie's life meet, fight and eventually form an unlikely bond as they prepare to jointly bring new baby Jesters into the world, but it also builds a solid foundation for the more introspective passages that characterize the second act. Eddie begins to come to grips with the hopelessness of his circumstance, and the play shifts in tone to something closer to tragedy, as he helplessly watches life unfold without him. Director George Bailey illustrates the old maxim that the key to directing may be in casting, as he has chosen his actors with care. This is especially true in the title role, wherein Joshua Loren dexterously captures the rhythm and timing of the stand-up comic but also pulls off broader physical comedy with a clown's confidence, while subtly confirming that Eddie's talent was perhaps mediocre at best. Loren's work finds the necessary balance between humor and pathos, and his physical presence and command of the stage were authoritative. Of course the role of Eddie necessarily dominates the proceedings, but Adrielle Perkins does fine work as his wife, Susan, although she struggled with some inadequate costumes during the later scenes where she is very pregnant. Jill Marie Schierbaum, as the girlfriend, Jennifer, was off-kilter and awkward in the early going, but by the second act she had found more solid ground. The script works to her advantage as the play develops, but it seemed to me that this was also the result of some nice energy developing between her and Ms. Perkins. As the play allows them to bond as characters, so too did these two performances. As the libidinous doctor and nurse, Todd Zeigler and Carolyn Purcell adroitly managed to undercut the familiarity in the part of the play that comes closest to cliché, never missing a laugh. And Sydney Hymson perfectly embodies the weak but loyal Max. An interesting addition is that a sign-language interpreter, Ariel Brooks, is present onstage. While a welcome and considerate service is provided, Mr. Bailey wisely incorporates her into the staging, not relegating her to the sidelines, but utilizing the unusual properties of the Fuzion space to position her onstage. He even adjusts the text slightly to make reference to her. This might be a distraction in many plays; yet, while not a fully realized character, this device still contributes effectively to the air of unreality that Eddie addresses in one of his later monologues. I do not read sign language, but it was clear that Ms. Brooks' expressive work subtly reinforced the text and performances and became a fascinating and unique aspect of the production. A fresh and funny contribution to the local theatre scene, A Year in the Death of Eddie Jester is an entertaining production that also provides a little something to think about between the laughs.
A Year in the Death of Eddie Jester
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