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Don't be 'Gunshy'
American Stage chose the dark comedy after a reading left the audience in stitches.
By JOHN FLEMING
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 21, 2000
ST. PETERSBURG -- Some plays read well. Others come to life only when they're performed.
Take Gunshy, the dark comedy by Richard Dresser that opens the season at American Stage.
"When I read the script, I didn't think it was funny; I just didn't get it," said Ken Mitchell, the theater's artistic director. "But then we did a reading of it in New Visions, and I've never seen an audience react the way they did. They were hysterical; I was hysterical. So this is one of those plays you have to hear out loud."
During rehearsal of Gunshy, Mitchell stepped in to co-direct the play with Barnetta Carter, who had previously directed The Last Night of Ballyhoo at the theater.
"There were some things I felt needed to be added on and places it needed to go," Mitchell said. "A more over-the-top sense of comedy."
There is no shortage of Dresser expertise involved in the production. Susan Alexander, playing Evie, directed the playwright's Below the Belt at the Off Center Theater in 1998.
Below the Belt was a bleakly funny treatment of corporate life. "In a sense, Gunshy is more commercial," Mitchell said. "It has that sitcom feel. But what Dresser does so great is he sets you up with these one-liners, then all of a sudden he changes it, and the tone becomes darker."
Mitchell is billing American Stage's season as being concerned with family values. The rest of the lineup of mainstage productions includes Tony Kushner's adaptation of The Illusion by Pierre Corneille; From the Mississippi Delta by Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland; A Couple of Blagards by Malachy McCourt; andFalsettos by William Finn.
In an update of Noel Coward's Private Lives, Dresser's play is about a divorced couple and their new partners. They all get snowed in while celebrating the birthday of the ex-couple's son.
"I wanted to open with a show that makes people laugh but has some substance, too," Mitchell said. "I felt like it's the kind of thing we do best. It's a little twisted, it's theatrical, it's got a bite to it, and it's young and hip. It deals with such a contemporary issue, which is fear of commitment in a relationship, of how sometimes you want a commitment and sometime you don't."
Theater preview
Gunshy by Richard Dresser opens Friday and runs through Oct. 15 at American Stage. Tickets: $20-$28. (727) 823-7529.
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