Crumbs Are Also Bread @ WET
The first thing we noticed about Crumbs Are Also Bread is that its set is yet another magical emanation from the mind of Jennifer Zeyl. WET's stage isn't large, but somehow the frozen Midwestern town of Breadmouth fits on it: the town square, bedrooms, kitchens, backyards, the icy river. Even a full moon appears. Trees with bare branches, disquietingly, grow upside down.
The second thing is that the cast -- under the terrific direction of John "Louis Slotin Sonata" Langs -- could show the Mariners a thing or two about team play, and rotating positions. Nine players take on eighteen roles. In the interests of sowing discord and envy, we want to hand out just two Ned Niederlanders, the "Young man, you have got it!" Award: Basil Harris, first place; and Michael Place, honorable mention. Harris's corseted Oscar is not only the Eddie Izzard of Breadmouth, but he made us a little misty, too. And Place inhabits a dog's mind with an aplomb we haven't seen since W.C. Fields "intuited" a drunken sot's stumble.
The third thing is that Stephanie Timm's comedy, a world premiere commissioned for WET, continues WET's streak of 6-cylinder plays firing on just five. It's engrossing, even at two hours -- it's like meeting a whole village (thanks for that line, Kwatinetz) as Timm parades her endearingly kooky types past. It works best when it feels like Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, with some Desperate Housewives thrown in. (Alexandra Tavares and Kelly Kitchens have a great feud going on, and Tavares' love-starved teacher is quirkily radiant.)
But then the play recycles as much as it innovates: there's an old, blind narrator; a sketchy, dangerous young vagabond; a rebellious teen-age girl. The soppily earnest message that the narrator preaches -- about people who are frozen, whose lives are submerged, and of the damage when those suppressed passions erupt -- is just trite. (Breadmouth seems to have more gay skeletons in closets than the '50s). And as for the Little-Red-Robin-Hood plot revolving around the stranger and an (in-theory) innocent young girl he meets -- well, we sat through it. If other people turn into wolves, that's not a surprising dramatic payoff, we don't care what Robert Coover says.
So it's not perfect. Big deal. Go anyway. This is one of the best all-around casts we've seen on stage the last year or so. If you miss Crumbs, you're missing a damn fine loaf.
Crumbs Are Also Bread
WET
Through March 12 (Thurs-Mon)
Tickets: $18 general/$10 students/seniors
(800) 838-3006
Photo: (l-r) James Cowan, Elise Hunt, and Lathrop Walker. By Victoria Lahti.
