The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite
This review was excerpted from "Two Bright Dark Comedies Kick Off Taper's Series", By LAURIE WINER, Times Theater Critic, from The Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1997
Quincy Long's "The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite" makes a fuller world out of its eccentric sensibility. Long's story of three unemployed loggers who make a mess out of everything is terrifically acted from beginning to end. Schweizer invites the actors to enter their characters completely, and then collide with one another full-throttle.
The title is a bit formal for this funky parable,which offers a lesson on the monumental ineptitude and accidental grace of man. The action is overseen by a kind of puppeteer, a character called the Foley Guy (Wolfe Bowart) who works the tools of his trade from behind a table to create the sounds of the largely prop-free story.
The adventure starts when ring-leader Raymond (Gregg Henry) and his two buddies, the yes-man Merle (Frederick Coffin) and endearingly dim Junior (Matthew Glave), spy a statuesque stranger (Sisto) in their local bar. Wearing a dapper cowboy hat and tilting slightly, the stranger appears to be really out of it. What else can the loggers do but throw things at him? After that, the loggers take him outside, prop bottles on him, and shoot at them; they're so stupid or drunk or hateful that no one notices when the stranger gets shot.
Soon enough the loggers haul the still-living and still-mute stranger to Canada, to avenge what they believe is his rejection by a heartless wife. There they encounter Marie (the gloriously ditsy Elizabeth Berridge), a gal with a broad Canadian accent who believes she has solved her messy human entanglements through her faith in God. The characters occasionally burst out into song, and a high point of the evening is a hymn Marie sings along with her peculiar protector, a bizarre and funny Susan Tyrrell, who makes the most of all three of her small roles. Composed by Peter Golub, who also plays piano onstage, the ditty goes like this: "If God above can suffer us/Then we can suffer him."
The play suggests the ways in which we all bumble through life,causing catastrophes and saving each other, just by luck. Rather like the lives of its characters, "The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite" seems to ramble but finds an unexpected anchor by the play's end.
* "The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite" by Quincy Long. New Theatre for Now, Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2:30 p.m. Ends May 18. $29-$37. (213) 628-2772. Running time: 3 hours.