YOUNGSTOWN — The “Tuna” plays are gimmick shows.
Starting with “Greater Tuna,” playwrights Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard have penned four scripts built around two actors, usually two men, playing about 20 male and female characters combined who inhabit the town of Tuna, Texas.
There are plenty of laughs in the script, but the writers depend on the gimmick of watching two performers race on and off stage executing rapid-fire costume changes to provide much of the entertainment.
Youngstown Playhouse takes a radically different approach to the show, which runs through Dec. 18, and actually finds the story buried in the gimmick.
Director Pat Foltz deserves a writing credit for the way she overhauls the show. Instead of two men, her staging features five women, and she eliminated several characters in turning the two-act, two-hour comedy into a show that runs about 90 minutes without intermission.
There still are costume changes, but not nearly as many.
No one is credited in the program as being responsible for the costumes, but they’re perfect. The sound design, also uncredited, is another element that plays an important part in creating the world around the characters, especially since the action takes place on a bare stage (except for a table and two chairs) with a wrapping paper-like backdrop.
In its traditional staging, the women usually come off as ridiculous caricatures with guys in padded costumes and exaggerated high-pitched voices milking the campy silliness of their appearance.
Those moments still are there. Some of the biggest laughs opening night came just watching the walks Denise Sculli and Molly Galano adopted playing two elderly mischief makers.
But Candace DiLullo doesn’t play Bertha Bumiller as a cartoon. She brings some pathos to a mother dealing with a philandering ex-con husband, three troublemaking children and nosy neighbors.
The final scene, where Bertha and OKKK DJ Arles Struvie (Jeanine Rees) are the only ones at a Christmas dance sponsored by the radio station, has an almost holiday rom-com sweetness, something that wouldn’t have been possible if DiLullo and Rees didn’t imbue the characters with some humanity along with the one-liners and visual gags.
Another touching scene takes place in the second half between Galano as Aunt Pearl Burras and Joanna Andrei as Bertha’s oldest child, Stanley. Stanley is the prime suspect whenever something bad happens in Tuna, and Andrei conveys how that weighs on him. Aunt Pearl gives him a chance at a new start.
I’ve seen several incarnations of the “Tuna” plays — I think every theater in the Mahoning Valley did at least “Greater Tuna” when it initially became available — but this is one of the only productions I remember that offered more than cheap laughs.
Foltz’s staging still has plenty of those. The talented cast knows how to deliver the one-liners that fill the script and add the body language and facial expressions that amplify the punchlines.
Sculli’s PSA as Petey Fisk of the local humane society urging people not to give exotic animals as pets is hilarious, as are DiLullo and Andrei as party-girl waitresses at the local Tasty-Creme and Rees and Galano as DJs Struvie and Thurston Wheelis.
It all makes this tuna a welcome addition to the holiday menu.
If you go …
WHAT: “A Tuna Christmas”
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday through Dec. 18
WHERE: Youngstown Playhouse, 600 Playhouse Lane, Youngstown
HOW MUCH: Tickets are $17 and are available online at youngstownplayhouse.org and by calling 330-788-8739.
Playhouse adds a special ingredient to 'Tuna' recipe - Youngstown Vindicator
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