The nuns, from left: Hilary Evitt, Beverly Murray and Becca Nordeen. At the piano: Lisha Brock, Tod Wold and Lana K. Hoover. Photo courtesy of Theatre Arlington.

Lana K. Hoover and Ted Wold. Photo courtesy of Theatre Arlington.

  

The House of Blue Leaves

by John Guare

Presented by Theatre Arlington

May 9 - 24

at Theatre Arlington
305 W. Main St.
Arlington, TX 76010
817-275-7661

$15-$17

7:30pm Thursday; 8pm Friday & Saturday; 2pm Sunday
Runtime: 110 minutes

The title-explanation speech in John Guare's dark comedy The House of Blue Leaves comes about halfway through the first act. Artie, a zookeeper who really wants to make it big as a songwriter in Hollywood, is describing the property of a Long Island psych hospital to his fittingly named wife, Bananas.

"There was a tree with blue leaves," he tells her. "I walked under it to get out of the rain ... and all the leaves flew away in one big round bunch. Just lifted up, leaving a bare tree. It was birds ... and all the birds flew to another tree a couple of hundred feet off and that bare tree blossomed." And then, lest anyone think he could be sappy, Artie adds to his pitch that "a lot of famous people have had crackdowns there, so you'll be running in good company."

That speech pretty much defines Guare at his comic best,outrageous with heart, never for the sake of being quirky. And he was never any better at meshing the wacky and serious than in The House of Blue Leaves, which debuted off-Broadway in 1970. Four years earlier, Guare had played Artie in a reading at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference in Connecticut. But, he writes in the play's foreword, it took him four more years, the death of his father and seeing Laurence Olivier in back-to-back productions of Dance of Death and A Flea in Her Ear before he could make sense of a second act. Guare didn't see any reason why The House of Blue Leaves couldn't be the love-child of Strindberg and Feydeau.

His breakthrough play is probably not as howlingly funny as it was to audiences 40 years ago, but this is one comedy that deserves a good dusting-off every now and then. Its influence can be seen in Christopher Durang, David Lindsay-Abaire and Wes Anderson. And, when approached with a mix of glee and reverence, it's still pretty hilarious.

Theatre Arlington does it justice in a well-cast production, directed by B.J. Cleveland, that is maniacal and heartfelt.

Ted Wold plays Artie Shaughnessy, who introduces himself in the prologue. At his upright piano on the stage apron, Artie performs his original songs (written by Guare; "Where Is the Devil in Evelyn?" is the most memorable) for a bar crowd. Then it's off to his Queens apartment, where we meet the cuckoo Bananas (Lana K. Hoover) and—great character name alert—Bunny Flingus (Lisha Brock), Artie's platinum-bouffanted fling. Once Artie and Bunny get Bananas into the nut house, they can go live their dreams in La La Land.

But it won't be so simple, of course. In the second act we meet Corrinna (Elizabeth Conly), the glamorous but accidental-hearing-impaired actress girlfriend of filmmaker Billy (Eugene Chandler), the hometown boy who did well in Hollywood. And then there's Ronnie (Skyy Moore), a troubled kid who was sent away to military school and has returned, bomb in tow. He's planning to blow up Pope Paul VI, who's visiting the Big Apple. Throw in a trio of nuns (Beverly Murray, Becca Nordeen, Hilary Evitt) and you have the makings of something altogether bonkers and wonderful.

There isn't a local actor more suited for the 45-year-old Artie than Wold, whose giant pop-eyes and round cheeks are the stuff of outrageous comedy. He's a little slumped over and world-weary, but never lets go of that youthful optimism that will take him places. There's fine work from Conly and Brock, too, but it's Hoover who holds everything together. Her Bananas is out-there, yet she emerges as the most sane character of the bunch, which is how Guare planned it. The ending is startling, yes, but it befits Guare's idea of a Strindberg-Feydeau union.

A good-looking set (by Jack Hardaway) and costumes (by Beverly Murray) bring it all home. There are two weekends left for this House, and by the final performances, the comic timing should be spit-shined to perfection, newly blossomed like the bare tree that became instantly covered with blue "leaves." You'd be bananas not to catch it before it flutters away.