Theater Reviews

Jan 18, 2003 - "On the Verge" at Bruka is a four-actor "Perils of Pauline" that's anything but silent

By Jack Neal

What the long-running silent movie action series had in "The Perils of Pauline," Eric Overmyer's play "On the Verge, or The Geography of Learning" has in the action of droll, hilarious dialogue.

"On the Verge" is a four-actor play - one man playing a host of snappy, entertaining characters and three women playing American world explorers, circa 1888 - that moves from mere comedy to something very special: characters whose nuttiness becomes so endearing they become friends an audience cares about.

"On the Verge" is being presented in Reno by the Bruka Theatre company in a production that's as snappy and sharp as Overmyer's characters and language. Both in production and writing, "Verge" is a remarkable achievement. A fantasy play full of fantasy beings saying fantasy lines that becomes, in due time, a delightful theater piece fleshed out with real people.

Following three Victorian ladies, dressed in fulsome traveling regalia, as they hack their way through just one more of their funny jungles or climb their way over the unmenacing (for them) peaks of the Himalaya's attempting to conquer their last "terra incognita" is a riot of silliness. That they wind up in the uncharted, unconscionable future of the mid-1950s still yearning for a life of adventure and relationships is the geography of yearning "On the Verge" mischievously and affectionately explores.

Heather Edmiston plays the primly midwestern Fanny, Mary Bennett the Brahminshly Bostonian Mary, and Jamie Plunkett the flakily word-besotted Alexandra and they all give knockout performances. As does Lewis Zaumeyer with his gold mine of intruding characters because he himself has become the Bruka Theatre company's gold mine for character portrayals. Zaumeyer, the actor-chameleon, changes his colors with the turn of a phrase and a change of a costume and comes off equally as entertaining whether an aviator-eating anthropophagi or a cuddly abominable snowman, all chaps plus many more the ladies meet on their travels.

But slowly the women are not just exposed to Zaumeyer's bushels of personalities, but to an infestation by the future of all kinds of schlocky forms. On the ground they find such artifacts as eggbeaters and "I Like Ike" buttons, while In their heads dance such inexplicable phrases as "Red Chinese" and "Mr. Coffee." The adventurers respond differently to future shock. One "embraces the future with all her heart," one accepts it like "cyclones, pit vipers, and bad grammar," and one pushes on, scientifically intoxicated, into the future of future. Like the author, they are obsessed with words as much as things. It doesn't make any difference whether they claim to despise the words they use as slang, or appropriate them for jingle and rock-lyric writing, or use them as a way of reaching for the galaxies of the unknown, words are the hooks Overmyer uses to snag an audience. Is "On the Verge" a sardonic cultural history couched in wordplay, or merely jaundiced time-tripping? That's for the pleasure of each viewer to decide.

Creatively, smoothly and wonderfully directed by Michael Grimm, smartly lit by Dave Simpson and Scott Dundas, exotically costumed by Mary Bennett, Robert and Jenanne Harbin and Delores Aiazzi, on a perfectly functional often crazily accentuated set, "On the Verge, or The Geography of Yearning" nuzzles the future with glee. From stuffy to funky the play euphorically skips along without missing a comic beat.

"On the Verge, or The Geography of Yearning" plays at 8 p.m. January 17-18, 23-25, 30-31, February 1, 13-15, and 2 p.m. February 9 (2003) at the Bruka Theatre, 99 North Virginia Street, Reno. For information call 775-323-3221.