BWW Reviews: Sam Bass's RED VELVET CAKE WAR is a Redneck Riot

THE RED VELVET CAKE WAR plays Sam Bass Theatre at 600 N. Lee St, Round Rock, 78664 now thru October 19th. Performances are Thursday - Saturday at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $15-$18. For tickets and information, please visit www.sambasstheatre.org.

Last October, I visited Sam Bass Theatre for the first time. They were producing The Hallelujah Girls, a Southern screwball comedy by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten, and I was instantly impressed at the company's ability to bring zany characters to life. It's now a year after my first visit to Sam Bass. Once again, they're staging a comedy by Jones, Hope, and Wooten, and once again, I'm impressed. Their current production of The Red Velvet Cake War is so delectable and delicious, it could only be improved if the audience were fed some complimentary red velvet cake.

The writing team of Jones, Hope, and Wooten is known for madcap, sitcom style comedy with a Southern point of view, and The Red Velvet Cake War is the trio at their silliest best. The play centers on Gaynelle Verdeen Bodeen (Linda Myers) who may soon be declared insane due to a recent escapade in which she "accidentally" crashed her car into her husband's mistress's double-wide. Meanwhile, Aunt LaMerle (BJ Machalicek) has canceled the upcoming Verdeen family reunion, and cousins Peaches Verdeen Belrose (Raynelle Shelley) and Jimmy Wyvette Verdeen (Rhonda Roe) immediately see an opportunity. If Aunt LaMerle won't host the family reunion, Gaynelle will, proving her sanity in the process. The stakes are raised when LaMerle and Gaynelle enter a bet regarding who bakes the best red velvet cake.

A ridiculous, uproarious Jones, Hope, and Wooten plot requires a director who's not afraid of wacky, sometimes frenzied and bawdy comedy, and Lynn S. Beaver is as fearless as they get. Under her direction, each joke lands, and moment after moment features visual sight gags (a swordfight using toilet brushes had me tearing up), but more importantly, characters and relationships are fully developed. Comedies by Jones, Hope, and Wooten are often about the bonds of family and sisterhood, and those bonds are immediately apparent here.

At the core of the play are a trio of heroines wonderfully played by Linda Myers, Raynelle Shelley, and Rhonda Roe. Myers is wonderfully fragile and unpredictable as a woman on the brink of a massive mental breakdown. Shelley is hysterical as the sex-crazed, mortuary cosmetologist and de facto widow (her husband drove off in an 18 wheeler years ago and hasn't been heard from since), and Roe is brilliant as the tough, scowling, unibrowed tomboy of the bunch. The supporting players are at the top of their game as well. BJ Machalicek and Veronica Prior are downright evil as Aunt LaMerle and Bitsy Hargis (the town trollop), respectively. These are two villains you love to hate. And as 90-year-old Uncle Aubrey Verdeen, Frank Benge is a scene-stealer. The wise but crass Uncle Aubrey gets the show's best one-liners, such as, "What I want to know is why they call them 'hemorrhoids' and not 'asteroids,'" and Benge delivers each one with the perfect deadpan.

Like the rest of the Jones, Hope, and Wooten cannon, The Red Velvet Cake War isn't the most original piece of theater ever. Rednecks behaving badly are seen in comedies time and time again. But a "white trash jamboree," as one character calls it, is rarely this fun, and the fantastic performances of the cast at Sam Bass is the icing on the cake.

Running time: Approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes, including one 15 minute intermission.

THE RED VELVET CAKE WAR plays Sam Bass Theatre at 600 N. Lee St, Round Rock, 78664 now thru October 19th. Performances are Thursday - Saturday at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $15-$18. For tickets and information, please visit www.sambasstheatre.org.

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