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‘Lawrenceburg’ @ Dad’s Garage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Through July 22. Grade: B+
Travis Sharp, a strapping Dad’s Garage improv comedian who looks like he could wrestle down a moose, has emerged out of nowhere to write the ensemble’s best show of the season.
“Lawrenceburg,” an assemblage of caricatures that riffs on “Star Wars” and “The Dukes of Hazzard,” has been playing to sellout crowds that appreciate the playwright’s pop culture references and his playful-serious attack on the corporate bad guys who are paving the paradise of small-town America.
Directed by Freddie Ashley and starring a whacked-out posse of crackerjack comedians, “Lawrenceburg” pits the revved-up heroes of the titular hamlet against the corrupt politicos who’ve sold their souls to an encroaching superstore called, ahem, Mall-Mart.
As usual with a Dad’s Garage offering, this means plenty of blowhard performances, bottom-dollar technology and cheesy sexual innuendo. With only one woman in a company of seven, you can probably see where a lot of the macho butt-slapping and chauvinism is headed.
That said, plucky vocal acrobat Eve Kreuger fits right in as damsel-in-distress Lily May and other characters, including Bible-thumping postmistress Ainty (as in an “auntie” who’s heavy on the naysaying). Z Gillispie is a young, thumb-sucking Bubba named Mark, who engages the help of hippie-hermit Weird Wally (Randy Havens) to fight off the surreptitiously evil mayor (Sharp) and sheriff (John Benzinger).
Weed and LSD are Weird Wally’s secret weapons, but he and Mark wouldn’t stand a chance without truck-driving accomplices Blacktop Cowboy (Matt Horgan) and his sidekick, Levi (Benzinger).
Benzinger’s sheriff, who also happens to be a snake-handling evangelical, is a little too ghoulish and rather reminiscent of Raphael, the character he played in “Say You Love Satan” a few years ago. But his tobacco-chewing, Yoohoo-toting Levi is extraordinary. Half the time, you can’t hear what Levi is saying because his mouth is stuffed so full of “chaw,” but Benzinger nails every detail of this redneck moron —- glazed look, bumbling chuckle, shaggy mullet and all.
Sharp’s mayor is also a real doozy, and his town-hall-style Mall-Mart debate is a classic. While Horgan poses as all the citizens, the mayor extols the virtues of one-stop shopping. Mall-Mart, he reasons, is the only place you can get doilies and manure, sweet potatoes and candied yams. Trying to define pickles, he says: “They’s like a cucumber that goes into a cave.”
Besides such bizarre Appalachian phrases, Sharp’s best contribution may be his character’s signature yell. It’s not just any old “yee-haw,” but a snort redolent of spittle, swine, sweat and the film “Deliverance.”
When Sharp and his hammish colleagues find a theme that resonates, they pick at it like dueling banjos, and in the tight quarters of Dad’s Top Shelf space, the audience finds naughty pleasure in the proximity.
No wonder “Lawrenceburg” has become a cult favorite. If the troupe’s smart, they’ll remount this lulu later —- or turn it into a serial soap. Yee-haw.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. Also 8 p.m. July 20. Through July 22. $15. Dad’s Garage, Top Shelf, 280 Elizabeth St., Atlanta. 404-523-3141, dadsgarage.com.
THE VERDICT: Skanky humor and big-box bashing.
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