BAS BLEU LANDS SECOND IN TAVERN TRILOGY KING O THE MOON I’m over the moon about Bas Bleu presenting “King O’ the Moon” from Nov. 29 to Jan. 4. This sequel to “Over the Tavern,” performed last year by Bas Bleu, takes a look at the chaotic and endearing Pazinski family 10 years after the scenes enacted in “Tavern” and on the weekend of the Apollo 1 moon landing. Jonathan Farwell returns to direct the second in the Pazinski-family trilogy, which finds the family contending with the social upheaval of the late 1960s and the challenge of keeping the family tavern afloat after the death of their father Chet five years earlier. Jonathan guarantees you needn’t have seen the first play in this trilogy by playwright Tom Dudzick to understand “Moon.” The blue-collar Catholic clan includes Rudy, once a precocious questioner of Catholic doctrine and now a seminarian who protests the Vietnam War. Older brother Eddie is about to be shipped off to Vietnam while awaiting the birth of his first child. Georgie, the younger brother with Down syndrome, is still mischievous and sweet as a gumdrop. Sister Annie is considering divorce and mom Ellen is juggling running the tavern while coping with the idea of a new man in her life. As in past years, the clan is gathered on the birthday of their late father to give Chet a “State of the Family” update. Humor and heartfelt scenes ensue. According to director Farwell, the Pazinski family continues to roll on in this wild, fun family comedy. Farwell’s attachment to the Pazinski trilogy began when he and wife Deb Note-Farwell performed it 15 years ago in Oregon. He recalls how they had stumbled across the author’s first play “Greetings,” produced successfully in New York. In many ways, “Greetings” was the prototype for the Pazinski trilogy, which is completed by Dudzick’s “The Last Mass at St. Casimir’s.” It contains the same autobiographical elements, including a tavern similar to the one Dudzick’s family lived above and a child similar to Dudzick’s brother, who was born with Down syndrome. That first performance of “Greetings” introduced the Farwells to the playwright known as the “Catholic Neal Simon.” Farwell told me Dudzick’s approach is different from Neal Simon in that he doesn’t cram his plays with jokes. His humor is derived from characters and his experience as a Catholic. (Bill Cotton photo provided by Bas Bleu Theatre of Ben Means and Deb Note-Farwell.)
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 22:33:22 +0000
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