Somewhere amid the lunacy of Hiawatha Lopez’s Murth, there runs a thin thread of logic. Maybe logic is the wrong word. Coherence. No, it’s not that, either. Sense? I’m having trouble here, because while the play does have a plot that, against all odds, does end up tying itself together in the end, the entire thing is an illogical, incoherent, nonsensical exercise in batty wordplay. Imagine Tom Stoppard had written the Airplane movies on a bad mescaline trip, and you’re getting the image. Unfortunately, unlike the Stoppard-esque heights of linguistic gymnastics to which it aspires, all of the puns, repurposed figures of speech, and tongue-twisting dialog fall flat.
Worse than that, this is a play that attempts to be a zany hallucinatory comedy, but provides only sporadic — and not very hearty — laughs. When the direct address of the audience announcing the beginning and end of intermission is the funniest thing in your 90-minute show, you’ve got trouble.
The show’s failings are not for lack of effort on the part of a very game cast. Lopez’s rapid fire word cascades demand a full commitment to an overarching camp and kitsch that the cast is only too ready to give, particularly Charles Matheny as Dr. Ben Zedrine, who delivers his hard-boiled lines through clenched aristocratic teeth and with a maniacal fury. And Michael Rugnetta, as The Spooky Human Dictionary, effectively channels the Shatner school of over-enunciation and dramatic pause. His line readings are some of the funniest in the show.
But the story, something about an egomaniacal doctor who slips a stripper a mickey, her hallucinatory time-travel trip, and then a second act that switches gears to a pair of hapless drug runners and an angry Asian maid, is little more than a rickety skeleton on which to hang all of those showy words. It all tries too hard to be clever, and the audience has to put just as much effort into enjoying it. There are plenty of self-referential asides that try to lighten the load, attempts to toss aside complaints with a wink, a nod, and a “Forget it Jake, it’s Fringe,” none of which can save it from being an exhausting and frustrating hour and a half.
Murth has three more performances, through July 23. Schedule and ticket information is available here.
