Great laughs in 'Tuna'

I have always reviewed Bill Olson as an excellent actor. Now, I realize that was an understatement. His role in "Greater Tuna” at the Palo Alto Players convinces me he is an extraordinary performer.

It is a "role of a lifetime,” revealing the wide range of his skills in characterizations, body shaping, movements, timing, dialect and vocal skills. When he is submerged in a character, male or female, it is difficult to remember it is Bill under that costume.

This is a two-performer comedy, playing 20 characters, men, women, children and a dog in the fictional town of Tuna in rural West Texas, the third smallest town in the state.

He and Derek McCaw, a pretty hefty performer, himself, play all the roles, rushing offstage for split-second costume changes.

The play is a loving satire of what is, even today, a section of the country that has yet to move in to the 21st century morality. In fact, it may even not have moved into the second half of the last century. Bigotry, gun loving, censorship, tight morality, small-town gossip and fundamentalist religion still run amok in the streets of this dusty town.

Covering only one day in the life of the Tuna is imbedded a rough plot but that is subordinated to an examination of the range of characters one is likely find in this remote southern town.

There is the Burmiller family: Father Hank and wife Bertha, who is a member of the Smut Snatchers of the New Order along with town snob Vera Camp and the Rev. Spikes; son Stanley, fresh from reform school; daughter Charlene, overweight, ungainly and trying for seven years to make the cheerleader squad and son Jody, who keeps bringing home unwanted dogs, who then follow him around all day, foisted upon him and the family by Petey Fisk of the Greater Tuna Humane Society.

At a radio station OKKK (get it?), managed by Leonard Childers, disc jockeys Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie open the morning programming with a ditzy weather report from weatherman Harold Dean Lattimer. During the day, Struvie takes calls from such residents as Phinas Blye, who since arriving from Indiana has been repeatedly and unsuccessfully running for Tuna’s City Council.

There are many more such "home folks” in this remote town where God - their version of God, that is — is in perpetual residence for "quickie” praying and William Shakespeare is suspect for writing such premarital teen sex trash as "Romeo and Juliet.”

Along with God, however, there also dwells Elmer Watkins, the head of the local chapter of the KKK (dedicated to making the town safe "for the right kind of people”).

Bertha’s aunt Pearl Burras has an addiction to poisoning dogs and Didi Snavely is the owner of Didi’s Used Weapons ("If we can’t kill it, it’s immortal). Didi’s husband is R.R., the town drunk, who sees UFOs winking when he attempts to scratch out country tunes on his violin.

Bumbling and smug Sheriff Givens hauls young Stanley Burmiller into jail for a couple of vehicle violations while at the same time missing evidence that Stanley had already committed a horrendous crime.

I think you get the idea. This isn’t a bastion of liberal politics or conventional social mores. Here, even the Lions Club is looked upon as a subversive liberal organization.

Scenic designer Kuo-Hao Lo comes through again with another set representative of the locale and period.

Did I remember to tell you, this is a very funny play?