April
29, 1999
Inhibitions Unleashed at 'Office Party'
This zany, rollicking brainstorm of a comedy probes small-town
secrets and miseries.
PHILIP BRANDES
As the inebriated, genetically challenged denizens of
Neuterberg, Iowa, meander across the Company of Angels'
stage in "Bob's Office Party," you might wonder
if co-creators Rob Elk and Joe Keyes have any sense of
decency at all.
Apparently none, thank goodness. Irreverent, crude and
devastatingly funny, Elk, Keyes and their razor-sharp
ensemble unleash some of the most hilarious rural eccentrics
since "Greater Tuna."
As insurance ace Bob Finhead (Elk) prepares to host another
annual holiday drinking party (amid director-designer
Ken Larson's tacky cornucopia of office furnishings),
all is not well in Neuterberg. Bob is tired of handing
out promotional "One for the Road" key chains
with airline-size booze bottles. He wants more out of
life and contemplates a move to the wider world of Des
Moines.
The only thing to do with an urge like that, advises local
Sheriff Joe Walker (Keyes), is to take it out and shoot
it. A local AA member creatively trying to curtail his
beer drinking by switching to whiskey, Joe is totally
at peace with his small-town life. When he's not rousting
strangers from the public park, he's out cheating on his
750-pound wife every chance he gets.
But Bob's dreams of a better life have just become possible
with the return of onetime class sissy turned land baron
Elwin Bewee (Pat O'Brien). Offering to buy out Bob's business
for a tidy sum, Bewee harbors twisted dreams of vengeance
on the community that tormented him as a child.
The plot is but a slender pretext to thread deft satirical
portraits developed through cast improvisations. The mix
of scripting and free associative comic energy is effective
and contagious as the performers find inventive ways to
leverage their characters' quirks into sight gags.
Taking cleanliness way past godliness, Bob's lover, the
mayor's wife (Andrea Beutner), carries disinfectant spray
and disposable gloves to her extramarital trysts, and
nibbles fearfully from the edges of the pretzel bowl after
others have sunk their hands in it.
Not that one could really blame her with this crowd. Sporting
a tattered AC/DC T-shirt, Marty (Mark Fite), a clueless,
accident-prone pothead, begs Bob to help him find insurance
after his latest accident. Spinster farm-owning sisters
(Melissa Denton and Maile Flanagan) chatter in unison
about their upcoming singles cruise to the Holy Land and
engage in a groping threesome slow-dance with Sheriff
Joe. The mayor (Bill Bliesath) tries without much success
to keep his sexual orientation in the closet.
And in a pair of wickedly hysterical roles, Ann Randolph
steals her scenes--first, as the repressed wife of a philandering
minister, strumming out her agony in an increasingly scary
song she's rehearsing for a church function. Randolph
later resurfaces as the town floozy, replete with clutched
bottle, rotting teeth and shredded clothes.
In short, Elk and Keyes have crafted something to offend
everyone--and they succeed admirably.
BE THERE
"Bob's Office Party," Company of Angels, 2106
Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake. Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays,
7 p.m. Ends May 9. $10. (323) 913-9193. Running time:
1 hour, 25 minutes.
[Illustration]
Caption: PHOTO: The vengeful Elwin (Pat O'Brien), left,
confronts Bob (Rob Elk).; PHOTOGRAPHER: MELISSA DENTON |
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