You can see the jokes coming a mile off, the mystery is solved with intuition rather than evidence and the Second Act drags a bit in the middle, but the audience Saturday for the premiere of “Dirty Deeds Downeast” did not care.
Theatergoers at the Bangor Opera House embraced the characters and were in stitches all evening until they rose to their feet and cheered at the curtain call.
Penobscot Theatre Company chose Portland playwright Brent Askari’s two-act play set on a Down East island as the second offering in its 50th season. Askari, best known for his political plays, “Andy Warhol in Iran,” “American Underground” and “The Refugees,” keeps the laughs coming fast and furiously in his new work.
The theater company has marketed “Dirty Deeds Downeast” as a comic mystery but at its core, the play is about coming home to find and prove oneself. The suspected murder is in reality a MacGuffin used to get the plot going but it’s really beside the point.
Director Jonathan Berry wrings out of the script every smile, guffaw and belly laugh possible. The company’s artistic director paces the play perfectly, using each actors’ particular gifts to great advantage.
The show echoes the storyline of last season’s original “Trapped! The Musical: A Lobster Tale” in some ways but without the songs. Both are set on Maine islands, feature lobsters in the plot, and showcase characters questioning whether to give up island life for the mainland.
“Dirty Deeds Downeast” tells the story of Gerard (Ben Layman), the island’s only police officer. He returns home after burning out in Boston to live with his mother Margie (A.J.Mooney), who is being courted by Louis (Kenneth W. Stack). Island residents believe Gerard to be so hapless that they don’t even bother to report crimes to him.
This cop spends a lot of time at the local diner talking with the waitress Betty (Lucy Carapetyan), who knows everything about everybody. When Gerard hears that a lobsterman fell off his boat and drowned, even though his body is not found, the police officer jumps into action and sets off on a murder investigation. Suspects include Dick and Cole (Brad LaBree in dual roles), Edith (Mooney) and everybody else on the island.
Layman, a favorite with PTC audiences, gives Gerard a quiet sincerity and dogged determination that makes him instantly lovable. Although the character uses few police-certified investigative techniques, such as getting a warrant before he searches desk drawers of a suspect, Layman slowly reveals that in his heart, Gerard is meant to be a cop.
Chicago-based actor Carapetyan gives as flinty a performance as waitress Betty as she did playing the immigrant Draja in last season’s “Ironbound,” but she’s allowed to be funnier in this role. She and Layman have a believable and easy rapport that, in the show’s quieter moments, hints at a future romance.
Stack, a former artistic director of the company, Mooney and LaBree provide many of the laughs and the dirty deeds in the show. These veteran performers bring perfect comic timing to their roles.
The design team of Jess Ploszaj (sets), Kevin Jacob Koski (costumes), Neil E. Graham (sound) and Tony Gerow (lights) beautifully capture the wharf, diner, workshop and living room where the action takes place. The way set pieces role out of the wooden wharf is delightfully charming.
“Dirty Deeds Downeast” is a fun and silly romp that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It so pleased the opening night audience that most theatergoers clapped after every scene, an annoyance for the minority in the audience who believe applause is only appropriate at the curtain call or after a show-stopping musical number such as Mooney’s lobster-suited tap dance in “Trapped! The Musical.”
Three other shows in Greater Bangor opened last week, including an outstanding production of “Rabbit Hole” at the University of Maine. Some Theatre Company’s “The Exorcist” and Ten Bucks Theatre Company’s “Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike” opened at their respective spaces in the Bangor Mall and continue this weekend. The university performance schedule is shaped by the academic calendar but the professional and community groups should be able to coordinate their schedules so that they aren’t competing with each other for audiences.
Penobscot Theatre Company’s production of “Dirty Deeds Downeast” through Nov. 5 at the Bangor Opera House, 131 Main St. For more information, visit penobscottheatre.org or call 207-942-3333.
