It wasn’t “just another op’nin’ of another show” for Theatre Knoxville Downtown and their production of Lewis Black’s One Slight Hitch on Friday evening. While gallery hoppers were making their way around downtown Knoxville and the Old City on First Friday, another somewhat lonelier part of downtown—800 S. Central at the foot of Cumberland Avenue—was springing to life as the new home for the community theatre organization. Having outgrown the conditions of its previous space at 319 North Gay Street that it had occupied since 2005, TKD began a campaign in 2015 to find—and fund—a new theatre space. [Read “Theatre Knoxville Downtown Begins Its Second Act And Revives a Lonely Corner”]
Earlier in the afternoon, with TKD board members and supporters looking on, the official ribbon-cutting ceremony was handled by board president Bonny Pendleton and the City of Knoxville’s representative, William Lyons, Chief Policy Officer & Deputy to the Mayor. As he wielded the scissors, Lyons expressed the view that the revitalization of the 1956-era building was the type of re-development that the City appreciated and needed.
While the opening night audience was, admittedly, a friendly one, they no doubt noted those glaring areas where continuing financial support is needed—audience ambience and sight-lines, stage lighting, and entrance aesthetics. On the other hand, the theatrical evening seemed to go off without a hitch, excluding, of course, for the characters in Lewis Black’s living room comedy.
Playwright Lewis Black—yes, THAT Lewis Black, the stand-up comedian and actor—has admitted that if his name wasn’t on the play, no one would know he wrote it. In fact, One Slight Hitch does depart substantially from the image one has of Black from his comedian persona, a guy on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Black also admits, however, that the idea for the play was inspired by his own experience. A girl with whom Black had been living broke up with him and told him she never wanted to get married. Then, she telephoned him one day and said she’d met a man and … they were getting hitched. Friends of Black and the former girlfriend attended the wedding and later reported that all anyone could talk about at the wedding was him. Of course, this inspired an idea in Black—what IF he had actually shown up for the wedding.
Black’s play takes us to Cincinnati in the early 1980s and to the affluent suburban home of Doc and Delia Coleman on the day their eldest daughter, Courtney (Rebecca Gomez), is to be married in a backyard garden ceremony. As per Black’s admission, the “hitch” is the unexpected arrival of Courtney’s ex-boyfriend, Ryan (Dennis Hart), a character who now envisions himself as a Jack Kerouac-like poet re-creating a 1980s On the Road.
The comic angst of the situation, and much of the play’s momentum, centers on Doc (Craig Smith) and Delia (Mary Sue Greiner). While Doc seems to genuinely like Ryan, Delia is panicked by his inopportune appearance that threatens to upset her plan to create a perfect garden wedding for her daughter as compensation for her own lack of one. Greiner is masterful at creating the gamut of emotions of a mother of the bride—from valium-ed giddiness to an out-and-out rage fueled anxiety—each showing on her face with a tasty dramatic efficiency.
Director Windie Wilson has created varying rhythms, allowing each of the characters a speed and intensity that keeps the scenes moving. The youngest sister, P.B. (Carys Mullinax), and the middle sister, Melanie (Summer Awad), have the task of being the final dab of comedic glue keeping the family dynamic at a boiling point. Melanie’s first entrance, coming in from a shift as a hospital nurse, provides a bit of comedy on its own, as she plops down and starts throwing back liquor, all the while in a starched white nurse costume that looks more than a little “naughty nurse.” And, in fact, Awad’s over-sexed Melanie even has Ryan running for sanctuary in the bathroom.
When Courtney’s groom-to-be, Harper (Matt Lyscas), finally shows up with the wedding cake, he proves to be the exact opposite of the unkempt and rough-edged Ryan. Wilson has him reliable and polite, and decked out in a 1980s preppy outfit, with the requisite sweater tied around his shoulders. Harper probably deserves something, well, different. And so does Courtney.
One Slight Hitch proved to be a good first production for TKD’s new space. Its few technical requirements are easily staged, allowing the company to get its dramatic feet wet, while remaining on solid theatrical ground. There are performances Thursday-Sunday thru April 21. Remaining shows this season are The Man From Earth (May 17-June 2) and 45 Seconds From Broadway (June 28-July 14).
