Woes May Need A WHOA

The Woes of Kilimanjaro…Country Club
By Alexx Stuart
Directed by Dierdre Kaye
Darknight Productions
Presented at various Locations
Every Thursday and Sunday from October – May
480-595-7346

Ticket prices vary

     It was non stop hysteria from the moment I walked in the door of the Legends Trails Community Center. Desert Foothills Theatre was holding its recent fund raiser Theatricale and had hired Darknight Productions to present an evening of entertainment for them. The reason for all the commotion was the wacky performance of members of the Darknight  troupe as they presented Alexx Stuart’s latest show called THE WOES OF KILIMANJARO…COUNRY CLUB. Even before the buffet was served and the lights( symbolically) went down,  seven strangely costumed persons wandered around the tables engaging the audience in various inane activities. This was just the prelude, of course, and as the play began, it was clear that this was no ordinary show. All the usual stage conventions and inhibitions were thrown to the winds. With a very rudimentary set and no lights but with an excellent sound plot, Director Diedre Kaye and her actors (Mike Debusk, Brenda Goodenberger, Anna Leander, Rob Trygg, Holly Moran, Wade Moran, and Matt Morgan) proceeded to entertain with the oldest of shtick in what you might call a modern melodrama. And the audience ate it up!

As Meribth Reeves, Managing Director of Desert Foothills Theatre put it, “This is theater for the pure joy of it. We want our audiences to grow and see all kinds of different things. We raise money through theatricales (instead of fashion shows) because that is what we know.” Desert Foothills will be mounting its own mainstage production of GYPSY in November at Cactus Shadows High School (to be reviewed at a later date) but they started their season with this fund raiser as something different. Future theatricales include COYOTE DREAMS on December 8 (which is about two snowbirds deciding whether to move to Arizona) and LILIA on January 20. For more info on Desert Foothills, go to their website at www.desertfoothillstheater.com

Back to Darknight Productions… The mayhem of the action in WOES onstage was interspersed with several dinner courses which, since this was also a murder mystery, afforded an opportunity for the audience to guess who the culprit was. The premise of the thin plot is that a challenge golf match (appropriate for the locale of the performance at the Legend Trails Country Club) between Dingo Irons, (Debusk) an Australian who is the world’s top golfer, and Patty Cyberg (Leander), a golf pro is about to be played at the Kilimanjaro country club. But evil is afoot because there is a million dollar prize and several suspicious characters want to steal it. First is Portia Lemans (Holly Moran), who drives the snack cart but wants to drive for NASCAR; second is C.D.Plotz (Trygg), the obnoxious, dirty, hillbilly like groundskeeper; third is Del Shanke (Morgan), a bankrupt diamond mine owner; and fourth is The Widow B_I_T_C_H (Goodenberger) so named for the 5 dead husbands whose names and initials she took in that order.
We watch each of these characters suspiciously throughout the show to see if we can catch them in the act. Then there is Lord J. Wellington Smathers (Wade Moran), the smarmy club President who eventually becomes a victim and is killed for the money he is about to steal himself. As you can tell just by these names, the designation of melodrama is right on the mark.  With the exception of Dingo and Lord Smathers, the characterizations were also on the mark, in fact they were excellent. Plotz, in particular was absolutely hysterical; his every move was guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. And Holly Moran in her dual roles as Lemans and Edna Mae Wunch had the comic timing which all actors die for. Her singing voice was also very good – she knows how to put over a song. And Goodenberger was a sinuously, insincere villainess par excellence. Unfortunately, Wade Moran did not live up to the potential of the others in the cast. His words were garbled as Lord Smathers and in his dual role as Detective Andy Lackowitz (think NYPD Blue), he lacked the necessary oomph to bring his character to life.

But the best parts of this comic piece were definitely the politically incorrect one liners and the clever song parodies scattered throughout the script. This show satirizes everyone and everything, making good use of audience participation along the way. Some examples: “I haven’t been this nervous since I went quail hunting with Dick Cheney.” “Your golf shot looks like a Heidi Fleiss – a big hooker.”   And there is a whole scene which is just one big joke. The actors morph into clubs in a golf bag and  assume the persona of a driver, wood and/or putter in hilarious fashion and costume. While this is certainly not classic theater in any sense, it is a funny show, a little silly at times but a great escape. If I were to suggest any improvement, I would ask the director to slow down the pace and commotion a little and give viewers a chance to digest their food more. It got a little frantic in several spots and the humor was sometimes too esoteric for the average Joe. But in general it was a lot of fun.

Darknight Productions will present THE WOES OF KILIMANJARO throughout the months of November and February at various locations in the Valley. In addition they perform MURDER AT SAVINGS AND LOAN BALLPARK, a baseball parody at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria in Old Town Scottsdale in October and March. COYOTE DREAMS plays in December and FOOTBALL, THE MUSICAL opens in January, just in time for the Superbowl I presume. Several other shows are set for April; you can see that Darknight has a busy season ahead. For more info, go to www.darknightproductions.us. If you like to laugh at silly things, you’ll love it!