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Silliness swamps 'Duck Hunter'
(by Herb Hammer - April 29, 2009)
THEATER, BY HERB HAMMER
Silliness swamps 'Duck Hunter'
Sandy is a reporter for the Weekly World and Globe, a New York-based supermarket tabloid. We're told early on the paper is circulated nationally twice a week. Calling this rag the biweekly World and Globe might get people thinking the paper to be a gay publication.
And that's just a small part of the off-beat humor in Mitch Albom's "Duck Hunter Shoots Angel," the current offering by the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre.
Lester, Sandy's publisher, has sent him, along with his photographer, Lenny, to the swamps of Alabama in order to scoop a story about a couple of duck hunters who appear to have shot an angel.
First, Sandy must find the hunters, who are still wandering around the swamp. Then he has to get away from the helicopters full of rival journalists in order to get the exclusive.
Sounds clever enough. Sounds like great stuff for a comedy. Well, that's probably right, but we never know, for Mr. Albom has chosen to make his play so full of silly complications with a plot that virtually stands still.
As the Alabama duck hunters slosh through the swamp all panicky over their accidental shooting of an angel, the complicated story of sorts comes to light.
It seems that Sandy, at one time a legitimate journalist, once lived in these parts and fell in love. Promising to return, he heads for New York and the big bucks, never to be seen in Alabama again. That is until now.
If Mr. Albom would have stuck with his duck hunters story, he might have had a real comedy here. But no, he just has too much to get off his chest. He winds with a complicated mess on his hands, along with two lamebrained hunters.
Something else has happened offstage. The journalist hits a deer, though we're not sure it is a deer, on the highway and doesn't stop to check it out. Then someone else he used to know swerves to miss the deer, runs off the road and dies.
Meanwhile, a disembodied voice has conversations with Sandy. Is this Sandy's psychiatrist? Don't ask; you'll never know.
Meanwhile back in New York, Lester is on the phone urging Sandy to move on. Lester is accompanied by a half man, half alligator, a character from a recent story by Sandy. Don't try to figure that one out.
While all this silly angel-shooting business is going on, our hero Sandy makes several stops at a local convenient store for supplies. The clerk is the daughter of, well, you'll see this coming a mile away.
Why give us a sappy sentimental conclusion when there are a few real laughs here? Mr. Albom, the sentimentalist, couldn't help himself.
Mitch Albom, of "Tuesdays With Morry" fame, tries to give us enough gags that work in his "Angel" play to keep it from falling completely apart.
Director Bob McCoy turns "Duck Hunter Shoots Angel" into a wild and rowdy farce. He's been able to piece together enough of Mr. Albom's play to make it somewhat less than painful.
Adam Young shines in the role of Sandy and single-handedly holds the play together. He's the only believable actor on stage, aside from Marvin Malloy, who holds his own as Lenny.
The hunters, Duwell and his brother, Duane, are so obnoxious you're just happy when they are not on stage, which is too seldom.
The rest do their best with what they have to work with.
Good for a few laughs but far too messy, "Duck Hunter Shoots Angel" collapses under its own weight.
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