It’s easy for people in the Northwest to think of New York as a big, scary city where you could get mugged in broad daylight or assaulted on the steps of your hotel, but you would think the people who lived there were used to it. Perhaps most New Yorkers have learned to live with a certain level of fear; maybe that’s part of what makes it exciting.
But for one character in “Cahoots,†a comedy/thriller opening Nov. 17 at Bremerton Community Theatre, it’s a daily battle just to stay alive. Unfortunately for Al (Eric Spencer) danger, and death, is unpredictable in the Big Apple.
Al, we learn, is obsessed with safety after his brother was murdered in a mugging. He is constantly organizing neighborhood safety meetings and instructing his wife and friends on things like defensive dressing (look like a bum so you won’t be a target) and defensive walking (swagger in a manly ‘don’t mess with me’ fashion).
Al’s wife Lois (Jacqueline Taylor) is a book editor whose latest release is a self-help book with the very ‘80s title, “How To Be A Real Person.†She humors her husband with his obsession, but mocks him behind his back.
The action all takes place in the high-rise apartment of Jan, a commercial actress (Rana Tan), and her architect husband, Ken (Dale Peterson).
The couples plan on meeting at Jan and Ken’s for dinner before heading to a block association Crimebusters meeting that Al has organized. To teach his friends just how easy it is to be a crime victim, Al breaks into the 10th floor apartment via the patio door, which he opens with a credit card.
Just as he enters the apartment Jan and Lois arrive. Thinking quickly, he dives into a storage chest. It’s a good thing actor Spencer is on the diminutive side — he’s in the chest for quite some time.
While in hiding he overhears a conversation about him that makes his already simmering blood boil, and sets the tone for the rest of the evening.
Having no choice but to “come out of the closet,†so to speak, Al confronts the women, who tell him he is being ridiculous. Al has a short fuse and a new grudge against his friend Ken, whom he badgers and heckles relentlessly throughout dinner.
Saying more would give the plot away, but what follows examines just how far “self-defense†can go before it becomes a crime.
It also looks at the definition of “victim,†and how fluid that definition can be.
The play has enough humor to be called a comedy, and enough plot twists to be called a thriller.
“Cahoots†treads the same threadbare turf as many Neil Simon plays, a New York apartment peopled with neurotic 1980s-vintage yuppies, but playwright Rick Johnston does not quite have Simon’s flair for fast-paced, witty dialogue. His characters bludgeon each other with histrionics rather than rapier wit, and volume takes the place of subtlety in conveying emotions.
This play, directed by local theater veteran Eric Wise, is familiar fare for the meat-and-potatoes crowd at the Bremerton Community Theater, which is fond of murder mysteries and comedies set in New York or England. There’s not much here to stretch the imagination, beyond some suspension of disbelief to go with the contrived plot twists, but it’s a pleasant night at the theater — and there are no English accents.
The small cast consists of veterans of many BCT and other local theater productions. They handle their lines competently and know how to play for laughs. Wise directs with a light hand, having spent enough time on stage to know what a cast needs.
He also directed three productions at Port Orchard’s now dormant Performing Arts Guild of South Kitsap. He most recently played the part of the jailer in the Kitsap Opera production of “Die Fledermaus,†and the slow brother in “The Buried Child†at Changing Scene Theatre Northwest.
“Cahoots†opens Nov. 17 and runs weekends through Dec. 10 at the Bremerton Community Theatre, 599 Lebo Blvd., Bremerton. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays.
Tickets are $10 adults, $9 seniors, $7 age 12 and under, available at the box office or by phone (360) 377-5152.
