Welcome to Tuna, Texas

Attendance is above last year’s numbers, and its producing artistic director, Robert Chapel, has been showered with accolades from a pleased patronage. Staging the much anticipated comedy “Red, White and Tuna” as a finale to this summer’s lineup should put a side-splinting exclamation point on a season that kicked off with “Oliver!”

Chapel, director of the alpha and omega of this season’s fare, said it has been a gratifying summer for him. He has happily watched people “flocking back to the theater,” and the stampede to the box office continues for tickets to the final performances of “Red, White and Tuna.”

This third installment completes a masterful trilogy revolving around the citizenry of Tuna, a fictional speck of a town in Texas. The creators, Joe Sears, Jaston Williams and Ed Howard first introduced audiences to the eccentric men and women of the “third smallest town in Texas” in 1981.

The lead-off play, “Greater Tuna,” delighted Heritage audiences in the late 1980s. In that production they were introduced to folks like Didi Snavely, owner of Didi’s Used Weapons, who proudly proclaims, “If we can’t kill it, it’s immortal.”

Didi’s husband, R.R. Snavely, faithfully serves the town as resident UFOlogist and accomplished drunk. Bertha Bumiller is a card-carrying member of the Smut Snatchers of the New Order and is often heard proclaiming, “Censorship is as American as apple pie, so shut up.”

The initial play was followed by the equally successful “A Tuna Christmas.” This latest offering includes all the aforementioned characters, plus 20 others.

In this latest look at the goings-on in Tuna, audiences will find nearly the entire population preparing to celebrate the Fourth of July and a high school reunion on the same day. The madcap mayhem is made all the more interesting by the fact that the entire cast is portrayed by two actors - Evan Bridenstine and John Paul Scheidler.

“This play is total silliness,” Chapel said. “Louder, faster, funnier definitely applies. This is truly a number of laughs a minute.

“We’ve had several people sit in and watch rehearsals. A crowd laughs out loud, but when it’s just one or two people they’re much more likely to just smile. But in this case they were roaring with laughter.

“Evan Bridenstine and John Paul Scheidler are such extraordinary actors, comedians and true chameleons. The choices they have made for their characters are truly extraordinary, extreme and very funny. Subtly is definitely not an issue.”

The director said the two veteran actors have found very distinct personalities for each of the 23 characters. Ensuring a clear delineation in voice, posture and appearance for each person is vital.

Another daunting challenge for director and actors is the staging and timing needed to project a seamless progression of appearances and exits of the characters. And being able to weave in and out of different personalities every few minutes while making it believable is no small feat in itself.

“First of all they have to be wonderfully serious actors,” said Chapel, referring to Bridenstine and Scheidler. “That seems weird, but comedy is very serious.

“And they also have to possess wonderful comic timing and comic instincts, which they do. They also have to not be the least bit inhibited in terms of trying things.

“Most good actors aren’t inhibited, but these two are definitely not.”

Even though only two actors are involved, staging the play required the establishment of clear traffic patterns.

“Every time an actor goes off stage they change a costume,” Chapel said. “We have five dressers backstage. There’s two dressers per actor, plus a wig and makeup person.

“We have laughed that we might want to insert a video camera to show what’s going on behind this tiny set, because it’s mayhem. We thought it would be really funny to video tape it and show it in the lobby or something.”

There’s probably not time to bring the behind-the-scenes antics to light for this production. But the audience attending the Aug. 4 performance in the Helms Theatre should enjoy the post-show question and answer session scheduled with the two-man cast.

“It has been so much fun to work with these two very fine actors in a tremendously collaborative environment,” Chapel said. “Both came in having really done their homework.

“I’ve come up with a lot of ideas and they have come up with just as many themselves, and included them in the context of the show. These two shows [‘Oliver!’ and ‘Red, White and Tuna’] have been completely different directing experiences for me, and I’ve loved them both.”

The production of “Red, White and Tuna” continues tonight through Saturday in the Helms Theatre. It returns July 27-31, Aug. 1, and then finishes its run on Aug. 4-8. All performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $22, $19 for those ages 60 and up and UVa faculty and staff. Students pay $14. Tickets are available at the Heritage box office, online at www. uvahtf.org or by calling 924-3376.