Escanaba in da Moonlight

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

HOLY WHA!!! Everyone should be a yooper. That’s what the Aurora Fox says. Uncouth. Unsophisticated. Uncivilized. Bar none. Escanaba in da Moonlight is THE funniest show I have ever seen. Everyone knows I am hard on comedy. Characterizations, timing and honest comedy stand tall at the top of the list. Stupidity for the sake of stupidity does not make the top ten comedic list. Knowing what Escanaba was about, I literally went holding my breath, and, oh, how glad I am I went.

Escanaba in da Moonlight directed by John Ashton at the Aurora Fox.

To watch Albert, Reuben, Remnar, and Jimmer walking down Colfax Avenue, there might be the temptation to divert attention in another direction. Never in a hundred years would you recognize Jack Casperson, John Arp, Michael Morgan, or Bill Hahn wearing the personas of the Soady family from Escanaba, Michigan.

It’s the opening day of deer season, and the family congregates at the their Upper Peninsula cabin. Narrated by the Father, Albert (Casperson) in a carefree homespun way, he unravels the tale. His 35-year-old son, Reuben (Arp) lives with the reputation of being the oldest person in the family to never bag a buck. The hilarious hurry-scurry tale relates how Reuben grabs onto any and every straw from superstition to magic, to native Indian belief he can to guarantee bringing home his buck.

Speaking in a language of their corner of the world, dressed in warm hunting costumes, they communicate with grunts, mumbles, distinctive unfamiliar made up words. Even though a glossary is provided to keep up with them, every word is heard and understood. Directed by Avenue Theatre’s John Ashton, this roller coaster upside-down ride swiftly leaps from one hysterical moment to another never quitting. Hang onto the arms of the chairs or you may find yourself on the floor.

About the time it can’t get any funnier, Jimmer Nagamamee (Hahn) lumbers through the cabin door lisping every word, knocking the socks off, that is, if there are any socks left to knock off. He’s dazed, convinced aliens abducted him and lived to tell about it.

Charles Dean Packard designed deep in the woods hunting costumes the audience can practically smell, as well as startling lighting that speaks with its own voice. Michael Duran designed a deep in the woods crude hunting cabin that looks like it was picked up from the Upper Peninsula and plopped on stage.

Expecting to eat all weekend with the traditional pasties (specific meat pies introduced to the Upper Peninsula by immigrants in the 1880s), Albert and Remnar become unglued when Reuben doesn’t bring them. Instead he brings a concoction his wife Wolf Moon Dance (alternately played by Mare Trevathan, Dana Miller, Lisa Mumpton, Elgin Kelly, and Trina Magness) prepared. Reuben also brings another concoction for them to wear. Their description of the porcupine mixture is far more colorful than mine could ever be. Although Jimmer believes aliens abducted him, Ranger Tom T. Treado (Dan Mundell) saw the same bright light believing he saw God. Strange words tumble from his mouth, as he breaks into song with “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The three Soady’s freeze in their tracks.

One of the most hilarious moments is pure perfect physical comedy that words cannot describe or do the scene justice. The rhyme and reason and timing are incredibly perfect. In polite society it would be shunned, but in this tale of mystery and humor, in a remote part of the macho universe, polite society simply does not exist.

Written by Jeff Daniels who wrote The Hours, Terms of Endearment and Dumb & Dumber, Escanaba in da Moonlight shines with out of the box imagination, and a brilliantly constructed piece of verbal complexity. With Ashton egging them on, I cannot believe any cast, anywhere, anytime could bring the Soady family along with Jimmer and Ranger Tom to life any better than Casperson, Arp, Morgan, Hahn, or Mundell. Not even the real Soady’s, and somewhere in the Upper Peninsula there must be some real ones.

Additional performances have been added on to the original end of the run April 3 date. Oh, would Escanaba could be open ended.

DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW.