THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 6, 1995 TAG: 9504060043
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater review
SOURCE: BY MONTAGUE GAMMON III, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BREAK
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
THE VIRGINIA Repertory Theatre Company's ``T-Bone 'N Weasel'' has all the ingredients of a rib-tickling and touching comedy. The script is layered with funny lines and seasoned with poignancy. The cast is experienced and talented, and the director is a veteran whose previous work has shown intelligence and insight.
Yet Saturday night's performance, though amusing and smoothly executed, wasn't the expected laugh-fest. On this night, the impression was of a good production that had fallen into temporary doldrums.
There is a perceptible difference between a show that lacks energy throughout its run, and a single off performance of an otherwise praiseworthy work. After the enthusiasm of opening night, it is not uncommon for the pace and intensity of a play to flag for one or two nights.
One suspects this struck ``T-Bone 'N Weasel'' because everything done on stage Saturday was accomplished with consistency and clarity, but little force. The extra push that might have given the comedy a crisp edge seemed to be held in reserve throughout the evening.
Even so, the work of Rod Suiter and Jay Lockamy as a couple of losers drifting through sadly comic misadventures along the backroads of South Carolina was always fun to watch and at best really clever.
Their characters are ex-cons. T-Bone is more violent and assertive, while the illiterate Weasel apparently commits crimes because he isn't sure what else to do.
Both men have a certain native intelligence that is hidden beneath their hopelessness. Lockamy in particular delineated the passive defeatism of Weasel with exceptional detail, though the character's shrewdness wasn't always consistent with the slow-minded picture Lockamy presented.
Suiter drew a well-dimensioned picture of the larger, louder T-Bone. Where Weasel has an unexpected cleverness within him, T-bone hides an introspective, almost philosophical side.
Dino Coppa plays nine roles, which are all the weird souls whom the two drifters encounter. Coppa seems only to have time in these brief appearances to sketch the shell of each person. Coppa's range and comic talents, which he has displayed in several Virginia Rep shows, aren't fully exploited.
Without patronizing or mocking these characters, director Tom Harris evokes sympathy for them. One wonders if his affectionate approach to this pair, who could be viewed as sad-sack clowns, might have dampened some of the humor that a broader but less humane attitude might have empathized. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Rod Suiter, left, and Jay Lockamy star as two drifting losers in
``T-Bone 'N Weasel'' at Chrysler Hall's Little Hall in Norfolk.
by CNB