Farce of Nature
August 23-26, 31
September 1 and 2
Director Mary Tuck
Auditions are July 16 and 17, 2018 at 4pm at Mallardi Cabaret
The non-stop hilarity of this Southern-fried farce highlights one day in the life of the Wilburn family of Mayhew, Arkansas. Meet D. Gene Wilburn, the owner and proprietor of the Reel 'Em Inn, the finest little fishing lodge in the Ozarks. Well, it used to be, but lately business is down, tourists are few, and the lone guest who's just checked in—an extremely jittery Carmine DeLuca from Chicago—is only there due to a location shift in the Witness Protection Program. Doesn't anybody just want to fish anymore? Certainly not D. Gene's frustrated wife, Wanelle, who's fed up with their lackluster romantic life. She's taken drastic steps to improve it through hypnotic suggestion and, for the life of him, D. Gene cannot understand why his pants keep falling down. D. Gene's feisty sister Maxie has her own problems, chief among them battling ageism to resume her career in law enforcement. She's determined to prove her worth by keeping Carmine DeLuca alive through the weekend—a task that's going to prove to be much harder than she bargained for since she keeps losing both her gun and the bullets. And she never anticipated the gangster Camine's been dodging for the last five years, Sonny Barbosa, is about to walk through the door, in hot pursuit of his sexy wife, Lola. Seems the headstong Lola has driven hundreds of miles to the lodge to follow her boytoy, D. Gene and Wanelle's son Ty. But Lola meets her match in Ty's seemingly innocent girlfriend, Jenna, whose patience has reached the breaking point after months of waiting for Ty to come home. In the deliciously funny romp that ensues, they all hide, lie, disguise themselves, cross-dress, and slam doors chasing one another, while trying to figure out the source of an increasingly awful stench. By then it's too late and the lodge is surrounded by vicious critters and hungry varmints that have followed the odor down from the hills. Yet by the delightfully chaotic climax of this one outrageous day, love blossoms, truths are revealed, and the lives of all—family, guests and gangsters alike—change in incredible and surprising ways.