OCC Traces McNally, From ‘Witness’ to ‘Dunelawn’

Playwrights have every right to suppress productions of early plays that don’t stand up to their later level of quality, but royalties are always welcome.

Two Terrence McNally one-act plays in revival at Orange Coast College Repertory in Costa Mesa show both sides of that coin. Though both are early plays, their differences show a giant step in the playwright’s development.

“Witness,” about a young man seemingly intent on assassinating the president of the United States, is little more than McNally’s bow to the then-popular late 1960s theatrical pastime of putting characters together and having them shout about Vietnam and an unpopular president, with some philosophy and a punchy ending thrown in. This 1968 play was a dim carbon of its contemporaries and makes one cringe today, considering McNally’s later work.

Robert C. Wilson plays the Young Man who has captured an encyclopedia salesman, tied him to a chair and gagged him, to be a witness to Young Man’s act of rebellion. Young Man has a long telephone conversation with a woman upstairs, Miss Presson, who is taking a presidential poll to see how many people are happy. He also invites in Window Washer, played heavy-handedly by Rocky Cerda, who drinks the Young Man’s booze and begins a tirade about his son in Vietnam and the dunderhead president who sent him there.

Danae Michelle Hanson nicely carries off the thankless role of Miss Presson, and Frank Miyashiro suffers with credibility as the Man in the chair. Wilson is bubbly and smooth as the Young Man whose attempt to assassinate the president as he passes Young Man’s window is foiled by at least a dozen gunshots from other windows, beating him to the punch-line.

There is much more theatrical flair and dramatic meat in McNally’s 1974 “Dunelawn,” concerning a rehab facility that is far from normal. One patient, Mr. Ponce (D.J. LaPite), is trying to stop drinking, but the thought of a martini drives him wild. Mr. Blum (Jeff Marx) is a recovering cross-dresser who just wants to wear a nurse’s cap.

Mr. Yamadoro (Sean Henry) is Jewish but pretends he’s Japanese when he’s torturing female victims. Don’t be offended; it’s tongue in cheek and funny. LaPite, Marx and Henry delight in the fetishes to fine effect.

Rachel Davenport is the head nurse, a case as strange as her patients, and Tiffany McClintock is her “sniveling” assistant; the actresses’ sincerity and straight faces during the mayhem set up McNally’s laughs, particularly Davenport with her Nurse Ratched tone of evil.

Marten Lewerth’s randy attendant Bruno is also tongue in cheek, made even funnier by his

lurid grin and the contrast of his character with Darren Crane’s Hugh Gumbs, obviously the most sane of the patients, who is considered stable because he once turned down Davenport’s demented nurse as a lover. There is weird pleasure in the treatments of Tino Tovar’s odd Dr. Toynbee, who treats his patients with injections from huge syringes and a whispered, gibberish that calms everything but the chuckles that run throughout.

* “Dunelawn” and “Witness,” Drama Lab, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends Sunday. $6. (714) 432-5640, Ext 1. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

“DUNELAWN”

Rachel Davenport: Ruth Benson, RN

Tiffany McClintock: Becky Hedges, RN

Marten Lewerth: Bruno

D.J. LaPite: Mr. Ponce

Tino Tovar: Dr. Toynbee

Sean Henry: Mr. Yamadoro

Jeff Marx: Mr. Blum

Becki Henry: Mother Maria Marthe

Darren Crane: Hugh Gumbs

“WITNESS”

Robert C. Wilson: Young Man

Rocky Cerda: Window Washer

Danae Michelle Hanson: Miss Presson

Frank Miyashiro: Man

An Orange Coast College Repertory production of two Terrence McNally one-acts. “Witness”: direction/scenic design by Mark Edward Fletcher. Stage manager: Janeen Rene Gronsky. “Dunelawn”: directed by Donald Lee Kindle. Scenic design: Kindle, Tracy Belland. Stage manager: Tarry Metheny. Both plays: Costume design: Erik Lawrence. Lighting design: Leoandro Ariel Mouzo.