REVIEW|| Trailer Park tales

By Milan Paurich

YOUNGSTOWN — If rednecks weren’t so intrinsically funny, Jeff Foxworthy would be a floor manager at some podunk Wal-Mart.

With their missing front teeth, “I’m With Stupid” T-shirts and propensity for marrying blood kin, rednecks are always good for a cheap laugh. You see rednecks on cable news channels 24/7 these days. The “Birthers,” “Teabaggers,” town-hall meeting hooligans and Palin clan have become our unofficial national sitcom, and their ratings are through the roof.

For those who still haven’t gotten their fill of mocking dumb, atrociously dressed, beer-guzzling NASCAR Nation types, “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” will seem like sheer and utter genius, an irresistible cross between Oscar Wilde and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

Betsy Kelso’s shooting-fish-in-a-barrel book certainly doesn’t miss a single red-state clich or stereotype.

Yet the SRO crowd howling with appreciative laughter at the opening-night performance of “Trailer Park” on Friday night at the Oakland Center for the Arts would surely disagree with that fish-shooting analogy.

And who could blame them? Robert Dennick Joki, the show’s gifted director, has so brilliantly cast and designed the production you might not even notice just how one-note — and one-joke — “Trailer Park” really is.

The 90-odd-minute run time hums merrily along, buoyed by a surprisingly sturdy score by David Nehls. (Musical director Anthony Ruggerio and his Oakland All-Star Country Bumpkin Band deserve major props, too.) Though it might not be the stuff of great “musical theater,” I defy anyone not to come away with a mile-wide grin on their face.

Set in Armadillo Acres, Starke County, Fla.’s “premier pre-fabricated housing community,” the play revolves around the marital problems of Norbert (David Munnell) and Jeannie (Jennifer Kuzcek) Garstecki.

As their 20th wedding anniversary approaches, toll collector Norbert has just about had it with Jeannie’s agoraphobia (she hasn’t left their trailer since 1983). Despite assurances that she’ll somehow manage to overcome her crippling phobia in time to attend the Ice Capades — Norbert’s anniversary gift to her — things aren’t looking too good.

Not helping matters is Pippi (a fearless Molly Makselan), the va-va-voom exotic dancer who just moved into Armadillo Acres and has romantic designs on the affection-starved Norbert. Because all strippers have deranged, Magic Marker-sniffing, gun-toting ex-boyfriends, it doesn’t take long for Duke (Shawn Lockaton), Pippi’s crazed ex, to come-a-callin’.

Watching this chicken-fried soap opera play out — and frequently, rudely commenting on it — is the “Trailer Trash Trifecta” of Lin (Juleah Buttermore), Pickles (Melissa Cook) and den mother Betty (Geri DeWitt). They’re the country-western equivalent of Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon’s doo-wop Greek chorus from Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s “Little Shop of Horrors” — and nearly as funny.

The most remarkable aspect to the Oakland’s “Trailer Park Musical” is how Joki and his marvelous cast somehow manage to make even the tiredest jokes — and lamest one-liners — seem like the quintessence of wit. “You think those jalapeno Pringles cover themselves in spray cheese?” might not sound particularly amusing on paper, but Kuzcek makes it flat-out hilarious.

Thanks to the side-splitting comic/musical performances of DeWitt, Buttermore and Cook, the show’s shoulda-been-a-groaner “Great American TV Show” number that spoofs Sally Jessy Raphael (remember her?) and similarly degraded trash talk icons, deservedly brought down the house. So what if they’re nobody’s idea of classic, hourglass-shaped chorines? This bodacious trio moves more gracefully — and stylishly — than you might have thought possible (kudos to Debbie Pesce for her witty choreography). Plus, every one of them sings like a dream.

Camp doesn’t work unless you play it completely straight-faced (Joki’s triumphant recent staging of “Reefer Madness” proved that), and Munnell and Kuzcek — saddled with the show’s squarest characters — know just how to earn laughs without winking at the audience.

The rest of the stellar ensemble — Makselan’s brazen stripper, Lockaton’s feral gunslinger, the “Trailer Trash Trifecta” — are like PG-13 versions of John Waters’ “filthiest people alive” from his 1972 cult classic “Pink Flamingos.” Oversized caricature/characters don’t necessarily call for subtlety or restraint, and the cast’s broadly, superbly etched comic performances deliver the expected guffaws right on cue.

Jim Canacci’s scenic design and Pam Saccui’s costumes (with an uncredited assist from multitalent Joki) are aptly garish, eye-popping and just a little bit scary. In other words, they’re darn near close to perfection.

If “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” is hardly perfect, you’d never be able to tell from this almost seamless production. And yes, rednecks are still pretty funny.

X“The Great American Trailer Park Musical” runs through Aug. 15 at the Oakland Center for the Arts. For tickets, call (330) 746-0404.