That’s great, it starts with a jewel heist, virgins, rings, and therapists: the Planet Ant is not afraid to kick the 2012-armageddon jokes into high gear with its original late-night comedy Tearful Release. Written by and featuring the winning troupe of 2011 Summer Colony Fest, and directed by Shawn Handlon, the show rides high on deftly funny ideas and batty characters that help smooth over its less-than-polished edges.
Despite some brief introductions and hints at exposition, the one-act production begins with a strong sketch comedy feel. Mike Hofer brings melodramatic absurdity to a bereft artiste who pays cringe-worthy homage to the woman who raised him. As an unhinged, undeterred marriage counselor, Katie Saari finds a serial killer’s resourcefulness in her quest to fix relationships. Rebecca Concepcion’s cult leader retains her mysterious, imposing force even when the real world gets in the way. Standout punchlines and sterling references are liberally deployed, deviating from the main thread whenever necessary to showcase the smart comic writing. Although a few everyday scenes and characters sneak in, the production revels in the outlandish, the heightened, the bizarre — this is a world in which marriages end because of poor performance on a reality TV show.
Yet what initially appears to be a series of parallel events is in fact the complex ground work of an emergent story of world-saving proportions. Someone is out to destroy the human race, and at least as many someones are bent on saving it. Add to the mix a few treasure hunters, an aging lesbian couple ready to take their love to the next level, and a repeatedly mentioned ancient Mayan ring of destiny, and suddenly the group of vague associations and carefully laid asides converge into the promised plot. The approach is not without its pitfalls: the tendency to veer off into tangents, coupled with the high-stakes espionage factor, can make it difficult to discern whether a character is merely traveling incognito or representative of a different person altogether. However, once the core characters and scenarios begin to recur (aided by demonstrative sound cues by Handlon and assistant director Dyan Bailey), following the thread becomes easier.
The action unfolds in a dimensionless blank space, the set a holdover from the prior production, the lights (by Handlon) sometimes acting up and betraying the scene. The three performers are clearly familiar with such limitations; after all, improvisation flourishes in just such a vacuum. Unfortunately, the kind of energy dips and stagnant hesitation that come with the territory in improv aren’t as well tolerated in the move to scripted material, and here there are hiccups aplenty in staging and delivery. Yet at the same time, the deliberatly tepid production values and stripped-back content also play directly into some of the finest moments of the production: unexpected gestures or punchlines that work as a direct result of the absent context, drastically changing the viewer’s perception of the surroundings to hilarious effect.
There’s a rough-hewn quality to Tearful Release that is both ally and enemy of this sometimes awkward, always ridiculous comedy. As evidenced here, imagination alone can engender plenty of laughter: it’s a laudable endeavor, especially given how difficult that laughter is to maintain. Here, both sides of that coin are evident, and the result is a wildly inventive array of characters and a freewheeling narrative that can’t help but fall behind the ambitious momentum it sets out for itself.