BWW Reviews: Vastly Entertaining SUPERIOR DONUTS at Stageworks

There's something about a stunning debut performance that makes us mark our calendars and remember the day we first saw that newcomer tear up the stage. For example, in the movies, check out This Boy's Life from 1993 where a young actor named Leonardo DiCaprio wipes the floor with the likes of Robert DeNiro. I remember saying to myself, "Watch him; that kid is going far." A few years later, it was Edward Norton in Primal Fear and Natalie Portman in Leon. (My grandmother knew it after watching Robert Redford in Barefoot in the Park, two years before he became a household name as the Sundance Kid; she said those famous words: "Watch him; he's going to be a star.")

Saturday, October 11, 2014 was such a day for me.

In Stageworks' latest production, Tracy Letts' SUPERIOR DONUTS, a young man shares the stage with an ensemble filled to the brim with the best local talent at the top of their game...and his performance outshines them all and is, in a word, a revelation.

SUPERIOR DONUTS takes place in Chicago around 2009, in a rundown donut shop owned by a slacker relic from the 1960's, Arthur Przybyszewski (the mispronunciation of his name is a running gag). He has no energy and seems to have given up on life. As played by the incomparable Jim Wicker, he's like an oversized Dude from The Big Lebowski without the White Russians. In his gray ponytail (an obvious wig that takes some time to get used to), Arthur slumps, dressed in tie-dye like a Dead Head antiquity, walking through the daily grind in a daze. He and his associates--friendly cops, pushy fellow shop owners--seem listless, disconnected, wanting something but too shy or cowardly to make it happen.

The show starts off rather slow and shaky; for a few minutes there, we wonder if these characters, headed by the withdrawn donut storeowner, are so lacking in life that they have not earned the right for us to watch them for two hours.

But then a character, and the actor who portrays him, enters the show and suddenly the play takes off and seldom pauses for breath. The character is Franco Wicks, a well-read black youth who becomes Arthur's assistant at the donut shop. He helps spring Arthur to life and gives purpose to the lost Chicagoan. As played by newcomer Travis Brown, this is without a doubt one of the strongest performances of the year. Make no mistake, the entire SUPERIOR DONUTS cast is one giant home run, but topping them all is Brown who brings an energy and empathy, as well as both a naturalness and theatricality, to Franco. This is a star turn if ever there was one. The character changes the lives of the donut shop denizens in the play, and the actor who plays him brightens an already stellar cast.

Brown is a senior at Blake High School of the Performing Arts, and this is his first professional gig. He delivers one of the great acting feats of the year and deserves all of the accolades that he will inevitably get. His acting instructors should be incredibly proud for what their student does onstage here--always in the moment, always listening, always hoisting the show to the next emotional level. He's funny and sad, smart-mouthed yet caring, intelligent yet vulnerable. And we miss him when he's not onstage. With Brown's performance, we realize that we are witnessing the birth of what should be an incredible career.

But Brown wouldn't be so effective if it weren't for his onstage relationship with one of our very best local actors, Jim Wicker. The give and take between these two is the highlight of the show. Arthur's subsequent change, both in dress and in action, stems from young Franco. It's a touching relationship, and the two actors play off each other beautifully. The audience winds up feeling protective of both of them. (Also, throughout the show, Wicker performs gorgeously written soliloquies that induce both goose bumps and tears.)

The only fault with these two is a small one: Why does Wicker's character misname Gwendolyn Brooks, one of the great black poets that he is asked to list? He calls the Pulitzer Prize winning African-American poetess "Geraldine Brooks," who, for the record, is an award-winning Australian-American journalist/author and not one of the great black poets. This mistake would perhaps be forgiven if Franco had called Arthur out on it, but he doesn't, and the wrong name remains a gaffe that should have been fixed in the rehearsal process.

There are so many wonderful performances on the stage, though. Richard Coppinger, master of all accents, plays the Russian Max Tarasov with an amazing amount of feistiness and energy. In his second scene, the character shows his real side and it is not pretty. Only an actor of Coppinger's ability can pull off a delicate change like that and make it seem so believable.

Roxanne Fay exudes warmth and sweetness as a lady cop that Arthur is interested in. As her partner, Joshua Goff is extremely strong in what may be a stage first...the portrayal of a Trekker cop. Dawn Truax, as the homeless woman Lady Boyle, finds a home of sorts in the donut shop and in the niceness of the donut shop proprieter, and she utters my favorite line in the whole show (which I will not share here because it gives an important plot point away). The chief villain, Peter Konowicz, is both charismatic and scary; his ulcer attacks seem uncomfortably real. As his slithery sidekick, Michael Mekus cracks his knuckles and flashes an eely smile that is appropriately unsettling. Rounding out the cast is Tim Guerrieri in a key cameo.

Watching the show made me crave for a donut, and the good folks at Stageworks obviously understood such a craving because donuts were being sold at Intermission. I ate one and it was, for lack of a better word, superior.

Director Ron Robb-Semple keeps the pace moving (it's a fast two hours) and has created a vastly entertaining show that should not be missed. The set, Mike Wood's lighting and Melinda Kajando's costumes all work fine, but it is the high level acting of Robb-Semple's glorious cast that elevates SUPERIOR DONUTS to the must-watch list. See it for all of the great acting, but mainly come see it for Travis Brown's performance, so in the future when you see him on the stage or TV, you can say with a nostalgic smile, "I was there when...."

I've already marked the date. Saturday, October 11th, 2014. I was there when....

SUPERIOR DONUTS runs until October 26th. For tickets, please call (813) 374-2416.

Photo Credit: Desiree Fantal

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