THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 19, 1995 TAG: 9507190435
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BETHEL LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Question for Angler's Cove Dinner Theater playgoers: ``When was the last time you came to see a production here and there was no bed onstage?''
The turn of the decade?
The trend continues - but there is a twist this time. It's a hospital bed.
It is the chief prop in a play called ``Wrong Turn at Lungfish,'' written by Garry Marshall and Lowell Ganz.
Marshall has good credentials if television comedy is your thing. He created such items as ``Laverne and Shirley,'' which co-starred his sister, Penny, and ``Happy Days.''
Now Marshall has tried his hand at Broadway comedy and fared well.
``Wrong Turn at Lungfish,'' which starred George C. Scott and Tony Danza, played NYC in '93 and was recently made available to theater groups around the country.
The Angler's Cove Dinner Theater folks snapped it up. You see, they had this bed . . .
Actually, Glee Hammer, a driving force of the organization, read the script, loved it and decided to give it a try.
This time around, she is taking a back seat, turning the director's chair over to Lynn Whitehurst, drama teacher at John A. Holmes High School in Edenton.
She brought one of her students with her. Corrie Blumling is one of the four cast members.
The main character is Jim Bridges who has been seen everywhere in the area in just about everything, always offering wondrous portrayals.
``Whether or not I did this play depended on whether or not I could get Jim,'' Hammer said.
Bridges portrays a bitter college professor. (Insert your own jokes here. As all in the area know, he and College of the Albemarle recently had a bitter divorce.)
One of the reasons for the bitterness is that the fictional professor recently lost his sight. He has enough other problems to net him a place in the hospital.
The play is a dramedy, a show-business/medical term meaning drama-comedy.
You will laugh, you will cry, etc.
Your children will have to stay at home to laugh and/or cry. Once again, Angler's Cove is offering an adults-only production, although said children see enough on television and in the movies, anyway.
``The play is many noble things,'' Hammer said. ``It has sex, violence and it's fairly suggestive.''
It relies, for the most part, on dialogue. Bridges spends his time in bed or falling down.
As was mentioned, he is a bitter man until along comes a street-smart blonde - with a heart of gold, no doubt - to tell him what life is all about.
That plot has graced every third or fourth movie, especially in the 1930s and `40s, but if it is done well, with some original twists, it works well.
In addition to Bridges and Blumling, the husband-wife team of Craig and Tammy Collins returns.
They were in the last production, ``Bedside Manners.'' They are back at bedside.
Get back to Angler's Cove if you enjoy live theater. This is the only one going in the good, ole summertime. by CNB