The designers are especially important in this production. The wildest performance comes from Todd Kehne as Jimmers, a skinny, bearded loon who comes off as a cross between an Old Testament prophet and the Unabomber. Wes Deitrick anchors the cast as the Soady patriarch Scott Miller is funny and well-cast as the unlucky Reuben and Thomas Heppler runs around in his underwear, for complicated reasons, as Ranger Tom. His cast plays the comedy broad – but never too frantic. Remnar Soady, played with loutish good fun by David Gigler, has been wearing the same shirt for decades.Īnd those Upper Peninsula accents – they sometimes sound like a cross between Canadian, Irish and Frances McDormand in “Fargo.”īut Nickerson gets a lot of things right, too. Daniels has not given these characters much of a plot, and what plot he has given them involves an incomprehensible mishmash of mystical nonsense involving … what? UFOs? The voice of God?Īnd, of course, the characters are complete redneck stereotypes, drinking whiskey, shotgunning beer, and having an incomplete grasp of personal hygiene. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of the show’s shortcomings. I found the entire show to be a solid, well-crafted hoot. If this doesn’t sound funny to you, stay away from “Escanaba in da Moonlight.” As for me, it actually suited my mood quite nicely on opening night. Director Troy Nickerson milks this scene for every, uh, whiff of physical comedy, including having the Soadys pull the sleeping Jimmers forward by the ankles so that Reuben’s nose is planted right in the critical area.Īnd it goes on like that for about five more minutes. So they prop up Reuben by Jimmers’ bunk and wait for the blast. They figure the only thing that will shock Reuben out of his coma will be a sniff of one of Jimmers Negamanee’s prodigious gas attacks. There are no smelling salts at the Soady deer camp, so his dad and brother have to improvise.

It seems that Reuben Soady has gone into some kind of trance, brought on in part by the trauma of being buck-less. It also has what is undoubtedly – no contest – the most extended fart joke ever seen on the Spokane Civic Theatre stage.ĭescribing that scene may be the best way to explain exactly what “Escanaba in da Moonlight” is all about. It’s set in a hunting camp in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, with lots of Youper jokes (Youper, as in U.P.-er).

This riotous comedy is a cross between The Three Stooges, “The Red Green Show” and “Dumb and Dumber” – which makes sense, since it was written by Jeff Daniels of “Dumb and Dumber” fame. Lots of plays might be called “chick plays.”

Escanaba in the moonlight