for the Observer-Reporter

Though it takes place in the present day, when struggling actors are more likely to turn up as extras on "Law and Order" than they are to hunt for jobs on the summer theater circuit, Charles Morey's comedy "Laughing Stock" gives you the chance to imagine what Little Lake Theatre must have been like during its infancy.

And by "infancy," I mean before conveniences such as air conditioning, indoor restrooms and a bar became part of the package.

Which brings me to the first question "Laughing Stock" raises: Are there, in 2008, old straw-hat theaters where audiences sit on folding chairs, where the box office is a desk and a telephone in the woodshed, where ventilation comes after somebody mercifully opens the barn door? And situated miles off the beaten path?

That I'm aware of, no, but I like the point Morey affectionately makes in this behind-the-scenes comedy, a relative to "Noises Off" and "Inspecting Carol," which it resembles without quite matching them in pungency. Community theaters similar to the one Morey pays homage to (and like the one Little Lake used to be) don't have to exist. It's enough that they reside in our memories, sharing a space with drive-in theaters that showed double features and malt shops that served double-dip cones for 15 cents.

Just as the other aforementioned comedies do, "Laughing Stock" makes sharp references aimed directly at people drawn to low-budget theater and has fun at the expense of its characters - troupers driven by the belief that they can pull off a risky season in which "Charley's Aunt," "Hamlet" and "Dracula" are alternated.

If you're thinking Morey won't end his story without causing two or more of the plays to overlap, what can I say? You've seen the same comedies I have.

Material that mocks the quirkiness of fictitious actors who won't ever graduate to the A-list is like catnip to real performers, and "Laughing Stock" reminds me of something a friend, who stands over six feet tall, once said after a shorter person made a remark about her height: "I don't mind being called freakishly large if the person saying it is also freakishly large."

In other words, don't pick on an actor unless you're an actor.

And very talented Little Lake actors are teasing and tormenting the people they're pretending to be, including Buddy Wickerham as a cocky method acting student who thinks he can improve a scene in "Dracula" by entering as a wolf and then morphing into the count, and Sara Barbisch as a starlet who auditions for "Hamlet" as though she were a Hugh Hefner-trained bunny from "The Girls Next Door."

Everyone in "Laughing Stock" portrays a recognizable type, and despite the lack of character development in Morey's writing, a good cast portrays a dysfunctional cast. Amusing work comes from Paul Laughlin, Charita Nemec, Patricia Cena Samreny, Jerry Summers, Jason Dille, Julianne Avolio and Nick Bell.

I also liked Leah Hillgrove as a flaky director, Art DeConciliis for bringing a solid-as-a-rock quality to his role as head of the theater company, Martha Bell as an impatient designer, and Bob Rak, who, as the business manager, has a priceless monologue about distributing pencils, proving that a straw-hat theater, too, can have its own Dilbert.

The play, already staged by a few theater groups in other states, could benefit from repairs and cuts. There's an inoffensive whiff of familiarity surrounding the whole first act, and then, after employing "Dracula" for a riotous parody of opening-night calamities in the second act, "Laughing Stock" wanders aimlessly for another 30 minutes, having nowhere else to go. What happened to the script editor?

At the end, however, when the season finishes and the characters wistfully talk about their emotional ties to this ramshackle playhouse, you understand why Sunny Disney Fitchett wanted to direct "Laughing Stock." Every actor needs a theater they can think of as a second home, and to many local actors, that's what Little Lake is.

Home