Sherman Sets a Substantial, Amusing ‘Table’

Martin Sherman’s “A Table for a King” at Highways is the opening one-act in Sherman’s full-length work, “A Madhouse in Goa.” Perhaps because it is part of a larger work, “Table” seems insubstantial at first, the hors d’oeuvre without the meal. Ultimately, though, this seemingly slight piece packs surprising theatrical heft.

The play, which runs through August, marks a departure for Highways, which typically features short runs by performance artists. A giddily amusing character comedy, it’s a departure for Sherman, too, whose relentlessly harrowing drama “Bent” followed the grim fortunes of its homosexual heroes in a Nazi concentration camp.

The setting is the Greek island of Corfu, watering hole for artists and literary greats. It’s 1966, a time of worldwide social upheaval and change. On the sun-baked veranda of the Kistos Inn, however, pampered tourists drift in an almost existential haze of indolence and calm, oblivious to the war and mayhem that recently ravaged these blood-soaked isles.

Nikos (Gary Dean Ruebsamen), the inn’s unctuously charming owner, mastered the arts of savagery and survival in his country’s recent upheavals. When his flamboyant American patron Mrs. Honey (Susan Tyrrell) refuses to give up her prime table for the king of Greece, a scheduled visitor, Nikos shows the subterranean depths to which he can descend.

By contrast, David (Nathan D. Baker), a young American tourist, is an almost childlike innocent, a homosexual virgin. As David vents his melancholy and guilt in his journal (Sherman’s somewhat self-conscious narrative device), he is exhorted by the thoroughly unrepressed Mrs. Honey to kick over the traces of his religious Jewish upbringing and live a little. After his hilarious but sordid seduction by a Greek busboy (Reza Safai), David commences his own passage into guilt, secrecy and the subterranean.

A bombastic Southern character who smacks of Tennessee Williams at his most florid, Mrs. Honey is a “solitary traveler” who has wandered the world since the death of her dentist husband. A chattering wellspring of anecdote and affectation, Mrs. Honey is an immensely broad character that could come across as cartoonish. And with her high cheekbones, throaty voice and expressive scrawl of a mouth, Tyrrell seems engineered for camp.

However, under the astute guidance of director David Schweizer, Tyrrell turns in a larger-than-life portrayal without a false note. She is big, bold and true, a vivid theatrical life force who rivets our attention, sweeping on and off Kim Russo and Seanne Farmer’s handsome set like a conquering queen. Even Jerry Browning’s lighting seems designed to emphasize her vividness. Yet Tyrrell is a generous presence who allows the other performers their moments in the Greek sunshine as well.

* “A Table for a King,” Highways, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. Thursdays-Sundays, 8:30 p.m. Ends Aug. 30. $16-$20. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.