The Wooden Breeks: Grave Errors

"…a story is like… a movement of the bowels… You can't very well just get up and leave midway… no… it demands you persevere and see it through…"

The above quote may not be the most poetic line in Glen Berger's dark, yet whimsical fairy-tale comedy, The Wooden Breeks (then again, maybe it is) but when your storyteller is a fellow who begins the play by putting out a "magical fire" by getting himself "foaming drunk" and extinguishing the blaze with "his own magical urine", you're apt to expect the humor to land a little on the mucky side.

Perhaps best known as author of the long-running Off-Broadway play, Underneath the Lintel, Berger once again delivers an enjoyable, if occasionally hard to follow, tale full of quirky charm. Director Tripp Cullman, who seems to be specializing in oddball humor these days (Dog Sees God, Manic Flight Reaction, Swimming in the Shallows), stages the piece with knockabout comic gusto that battles the gloominess of the story with fast-moving daffiness. Yes, the play is a bit too long and it could perhaps be a little less plot-driven so as to help build an emotional connection to the main characters, but nevertheless The Wooden Breeks remains witty, imaginative and spirited.

It's the late 1800's and the poor Scottish tinker Tom Bosch (Adam Rothenberg) has been told by the love of his life, Hetty Grigs (Ana Reeder), that she must be off on a "brief but unavoidable errand", leaving him to take care of her infant son, which, by the way, he didn't father. Nine years later, Bosch has strong suspicions that she's not coming back and despises the lad, named Wicker (Jaymie Dornan), for serving as a reminder of his sorrow. The only attention he ever gives the youngster, who makes his first entrance dripping wet from an unfortunate incident involving cow urine, is to tell him fictional tales of where he imagines Hetty Grigs may be now and why it's taking her so bloody long to return.

The bulk of the play is a dramatization of Bosch's newest story in which he hopes to find a way of releasing himself from his heartbreak for good. It takes place in the miserable town of Brood, where the famine provides a lovely change of pace from the poverty. Sitting above designer Beowulf Boritt's wooden frame set for most of the evening is Jarl van Brood (T. Ryder Smith), the lighthouse keeper who has never left his perch. His only contact with civilization is the periodic delivery of appendices to his science encyclopedia. He's the comparatively sane one in town.

There's also Armitage Shanks (Louis Cancelmi) and Tricity Tiara (Maria Dizzia), so passionately in love that they refuse to get married and spoil it all. Mrs. Nelles (Veanne Cox), the owner of the town's only public house, has been in mourning for her deceased daughter for years, keeping her business closed and depriving her neighbors of the pleasure of forgetting their misery by getting stinking drunk. The Vicar (Steve Mellor) has a secret crush on the innkeeper (or maybe he's just alcoholic) and the local gravedigger (Ron Cephas Jones) finds that his profession makes it easy for him to earn some extra income by being a grave robber as well. Bosch even adds Wicker into the mix, putting him through some unpleasant paces in an attempt to disgust the boy into finally leaving him alone.

Wheels are set in motion upon the arrival of a saleswoman named Anna Livia Spoon, who looks remarkably like Hetty Grigs (Reeder again, of course). Her product is a device used to help rescue those who are mistaken for dead and are buried, despite merely being comatose. A bell is secured atop a gravesite, tied with a rope that extends into the coffin. If the "deceased" wakes up, he/she can grab the rope and ring the bell, alerting the town that (forgive me) a grave error has been made.

As Tom Bosh, Rothenberg is an engaging storyteller with a grimy, bitter, drunken sex appeal. Young Jaymie Dornan is appropriately pitiful as Wicker while (thankfully) never being the least bit adorable. The always-reliable Veanne Cox is the standout in a very good ensemble, landing her character's humor with a detached drollness.

Anita Yavich's sullen costumes contain some hilarious visuals and Fitz Patton's music, heavy on the harpsichord, is at once creepy and comical. Paul Whitaker's light design nicely alternates between magical and depressing.

Though darkly humored, The Wooden Breeks (a/k/a "wooden pants", or a coffin) has some uplifting points to make about releasing one's self from life controlling sorrow. The message is a bit buried within the production, but you can hear the author vigorously ringing the bell.

Photos of Jaymie Dornan and Adam Rothenberg by Carol Rosegg