The Centerpiece
The Centerpiece
By John Reid Adams
Directed by Frank Siano
Starring Anthony R. Smith, Victoria Burns, David Hiller, and Travis Eaton
Thriller Theater presenting at Breakthrough Theatre
Winter Park Florida.</strong>
There’s so much promise in this wobbly satire of a detective novel, but the writing gets stuck in the woods, lost in the library, and stymied in the scullery leaving an otherwise enjoyable cast to chew through the gags spray painted on the fourth wall. Billionaire drunk Drake Figgison (Bob Brandenburg) changed his will again, this time leaving everything to his lazy son Marty (Hiller) and cutting out his shrewish wife Sylvia (Burns). Only flamboyant butler Charles (Smith) knows the details, and when Drake steps in the cat, knocks out the fuse box and screams in the dark, he lands on the dinner table with a barbeque fork in his back and a family not grieving so much as gloating over how to spend the money. Their completely wooden neighbor Robert Olams (Michael L. Hooper) and his daughter Sabrina (Liz Mignacca) arrive, call in the world’s most incompetent investigator (Eaton) and solve the crime without ever having to call 911. How cool is being rich?
I loved Smith’s flaming Charles even though the writer could never decide if he was flamboyantly gay, macho straight, or confusedly bisexual. Saddled with a confusing character, he blustered along and always stayed the center of attention when on stage. In close pursuit we have Ms. Burns as the bitter the Tallulah Bankhead of a sleazy wife, her feathered hat and sequined gown would be the envy of any drag queen in town. Brandenburg’s Drake is also a brilliant, he leaves us way too soon but even his Styrofoam corpse gets some laughs. But then there’s Mr. Hooper’s Olmsted – he remembers his lines but delivers them like a load of mulch. The plot driven romance between Marty and Sabrina Olams is plausible, but they spend more time mugging at the audience than falling in or out of love. And as to Inspector Abernathy, well, he does seem unqualified to solve a crime, and it seems whoever actually killed Drake will remain a mystery despite the confessions.
There’s good character work here, but the script bogs down under a load of jokes that feel like they would be funnier on a 1960’s sitcom. This story reads like it was written in a hurry and never edited, it needs some serious tightening. It’s not a bad show, but it can be a much better show.
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