Review: A Welcome Guest (a Psychotic Fairy Tale) at Contemporary American Theater Festival

In 2010, the Contemporary American Theater Festival staged something called The Eelwax Jesus 3-D Pop Music Show. It was the first musical they ever did. They’ve never done one since.

The play began with the fine actor Anne Marie Nest, as Esme, ironing white napkins. One after another. She must have ironed a thousand of them. That’s all she did, except for answering the phone. When she answered the phone she turned off her radio, and all the action on stage stopped.

When she turned on the radio, we saw people watching a band on a big-screen TV. A very big screen, since the band seemed life-sized. The band was wonderful. They sang depressing songs like “One of Us Will Kill You” to snappy upbeat melodies. When they did “The Gynecology Song” the Master of Ceremonies stepped out to sing with a tap-dancing vagina.

The folks watching the band were interesting, too. One was a sweet old lady with a dead dog, named after a former Vice-Presidential candidate. Occasionally a fellow in a gas mask interrupted to sell Moon Pies.

Now, that was surreal.

A Welcome Guest, sadly, is not. Nor is it slapstick, notwithstanding playwright Michael Weller’s stated ambition to write “surreal slapstick”. If I may diagnose, the problem is that Weller, who has written some terrific stuff, is too much the professional playwright in this endeavor. There is motivation, foreshadowing, tight plotting, backstory — and yet it is deliberately a ridiculous tale, made up with ridiculous characters. The result is a play that is not surreal, just silly.

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So here it is, in a nutshell. It is the future, after some apocalyptic event, and the world — and particularly Toppledon, where the play lives — is a hellhole. The Holy McMoleys, a family and onetime Christian rock band, has fallen on hard times. They have been given some ill-defined squatter’s rights in an abandoned factory by what passes for a government, and they are preparing for Christmas. Papa McMoley (Lou Sumrall) looks on indulgently as wife Shananana (Kate Udall) sings and trims the tree. And kudos to Udall, by the way, for knowing how to sing just badly enough that we could believe that Shananana believes that she could sing professionally.

The kids — Frizzby (Reece Santos), whose sole merit is that he can talk to Rottweilers in their own language, and Zazu (Sarah Sun Park) whose contempt radiates from her like a barely contained nuclear reaction — are eager to escape into the secular joys of Center City. But Lucius, a bureaucrat from local government (Michael Rogers), arrives with some startling news: the McMoleys must share their squat with another squatter — the terrified Shimeus (Wade McCollum), who has lost his home and family to a fire deliberately set by his slumlord.

McMoley, being holy but not exactly warm and fuzzy, is determined to oust the cowering Shimeus, fearful that if he shares his nine-story slum paradise the newcomer will discover the scrap metal that McMoley is selling, at a considerable profit, to the government. But, in the play as in life, the government is always right, and so Shimeus not only gets to stay but is even given the pathetic tent previously occupied by the hapless Frizzby.

And after that, Shimeus grows in power and influence until — well, this is post-apocalyptic science fiction. You can guess.

A Welcome Guest at Contemporary American Theater Festival closes July 28, 2019. Details and tickets

I will say this: I was impressed with how convincingly McCollum grew from a hopeless sad sack to an all-powerful threat to the Universe. The McMoleys are all stock characters out of the comic writer’s notebook. Shananana and Frizzby are dimbulbs — Shananana of the Edith Bunker variety, and Frizzby of the Barney Rubble type. Zazu is the smart-aleck kid who actually is smart. As for McMoley, he is of a type that might be played by the late Jackie Gleason in a more expensive (and much earlier) production. And Lucius is like every bureaucrat you ever met, but better dressed. (A review time out to praise Peggy McKowen’s wonderful costumes, especially Lucius’. A pin-striped suit is one thing, but pin-striped platform shoes? I should also acknowledge Technical Director Jared Sorenson’s interesting work with special effects.) The actors all do well with what they are given, but it is not enough to rescue the play.

At bottom, this is another post-apocalyptic tale, like last year’s Thirst, but not as good. It is a serious play that makes fun of itself, which is never a good idea. I like Weller’s work; I like absurd theater; I like past-apocalyptic science fiction; I like comedy. But this…this is notso hotso.

A Welcome Guest (a Psychotic Fairy Tale) by Michael Weller . Directed by Ed Herendeen, assisted by Shaun McCracken . Featuring Kate Udall, Lou Sumrall, Reece Santos, Sarah Sun Park, Michael Rogers, and Wade McCollum . Scenic design: Jesse Dreikosen . Costume design: Peggy McKowen . Lighting design: Tony Galaska . Sound design: David Remedios . Composer: Louis Rozier . Technical Director: Jared Sorenson . Stage manager: Lori M. Doyle, assisted by Aubrey Sirtautas . Produced by the Contemporary American Theater Festival . Reviewed by Tim Treanor.