They may not know it, but professional playwrights David Bottrell and Jessie Jones have tapped a notoriously underserved niche in the live performance market. Their “Dearly Departed” “” which met with lots of disdain in a 1991 New York Times review “” is eminently suited for community theater, a phenomenon that usually finds itself at the bottom of the writer’s potential client list. It’s the rare serious author who plies his trade among the neighborhood hams, exploiting their gifts for no money and even less notoriety.
But in mounting its take on this play, Vanguard Productions has underscored an important aspect of theater as a potent communicator. The script doesn’t have the substance “” and, frankly, most of the personnel don’t have the talent, not the desire “” to stand up under the glare of a more sophisticated clientele. What it does have is something many area theaters maybe wish they could deliver more of. It caters beautifully to a specific audience. And in this case, that audience’s expectations begin and end inside the walls of Point Loma’s Westminster Presbyterian Church. To that extent, “Dearly Departed” holds a certain interest, even a certain charm.
The story is simple, almost stock, in its turn of events “” to wit: Bud Turpin, a Baptist Bible Belt patriarch and a royal pain in the ass to wife Raynelle (Gwenda Measel), has suddenly succumbed to a stroke. The funeral arrangements bring out the worst in his survivors, who sort through a maze of festering resentments that only a death in the family can uncover. Brooding eldest son Ray-Bud (George Blum) finds his comfort in the bottle; no-account younger boy Junior (Bob Matchinske) is almost broke and is screwing around on wife Suzanne (Lesley K. Pearson); and druidical sister Delightful (Amy Mayer) copes by retreating into a sea of silence and junk food, like always.
There’s the button-down Reverend Hooker (O.P. Hadlock) and a collection of cranky neighbors on top of it all. But before you know it, the bickering gives way to the absurdity behind the contentiousness. Against all odds, the family reconnects, courtesy of the only dead guy in the room.
While Measel’s Raynelle carries nicely, others don’t fare quite as well. Matchinske is OK as Junior, but director Tom Haine has drawn him as a slovenly bumpkin, hardly the stuff of slickly executed infidelity the part requires. Blum, Hadlock and Jerry Marcu (who plays nephew Royce) are so-so, but they’re also burdened with the writers’ overexplanatory passages. The role of Delightful is an interesting one “” her constant binging on crap is a substitute for dialogue, and Meyer correctly plays her as the absentminded schlub she is.
And if you go, take note of the way sound/lighting designer John Murphy depicts Bud’s coffin. Minor stroke of genius.
The writers have seen fit to bury Bud with his feet clad in ballet slippers. The problem is that they never address the logic behind their decision “” and so it is with most of the exchanges. The only thing we really learn about Bud is that he was, in Raynelle’s words, “mean and surly,” a phrase everybody colors with a few snide remarks. And that’s nowhere near enough to justify the family’s backbites and bumblings. The typecasting is addressed clearly, but confinedly. And as a whole, the show has its moments (chiefly at the beginning, with Measel’s funny recitations), but the writers undercapitalize on them, often to the detriment of the cast.
But that’s community theater “” off-the-beaten-path performance art geared to a specific local temperament. Vanguard audiences have nurtured that temperament amid their dogged attendance over the last 40 years. With that strongly in mind, this show works as it should.
This review is based on the opening-night performance of March 24. “Dearly Departed” runs through April 9 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3598 Talbot St. in Point Loma. Tickets are $10 to $15 and available at (619) 224-6263.