'Bit' by the laughing bug 'Bit' by the laughing bug (August 13, 2004)

By Julie O'Shea

Good stage comedies, the ones that turn your insides to Jell-O and leave your face a tear-streaked mess, are rare finds these days.

Besides being difficult to perform well, it looks like this genre is getting stomped out by local theater companies' devotion to heavy dramas and musical extravaganzas.

But let's face it; the Valley could use a good belly laugh about now.

Heck, why stop there? Theatre Q and Dragon Productions will not only guarantee you two solid hours of sidesplitting hysterics, but they'll throw in a heaping teaspoon of heavy drama and an occasional slow dance.

Their joint production of David Marshall Grant's acclaimed first play "Snakebit," playing at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, opened last Thursday to a small but wildly receptive crowd.

The show about the enduring friendship of two men and a woman is marketed as a comedy-drama. Its strength, however, lies in its humor: small, everyday moments that, when put in the hands of director Russell Blackwood and his dynamic four-member cast, become downright hilarious.

"Snakebit" is the first production for Theatre Q, a relatively new troupe which formed in Chicago before migrating here in 2001. It is hard to think of this company as a startup though, because its Mountain View debut has a sleek, finely tuned feel about it. The center's cozy 150-seat Second Stage is the perfect setting for this particular show. The audience surrounds three sides of the playing space, giving us a sense of intimacy that would have been lost on the theater's main stage.

As it is, the plot takes a while to hatch. Grant spends much of the first act introducing us to the quirks of three longtime friends.

Michael (Dale Albright), depressed that his boyfriend left him for a younger man, is in the process of moving out of his Los Angeles apartment because he can no longer afford the rent. His self-absorbed best friend Jonathan (Jeffrey Hoffman) is in town for a few days auditioning for the action movie "Mortal Fusion." And Jonathan's fed-up wife, Jenifer (Dana Lewenthal) spends the days worrying about her 6-year-old daughter who is back home in New York and sick with a mysterious illness that Jenifer suspects may have been the result of a one-night stand she had with Michael in the late '80s.

It takes a second to realize that the sick child is the impetus behind the show's big twist. Grant could have prepared us a little better. The seriousness of Jenifer's concern, however, is not clear right away, and it is easy to ignore it as just a passing comment.

What's truly remarkable about "Snakebit" is that it is funny and touching in unremarkable ways. Grant paints us a picture of ordinary people caught up in ordinary situations -- relationships problems, doubts about being a good parent, job insecurities. We laugh and empathize with his characters not because they are meant to be entertaining to us, but because we can relate. At some point in our lives, we've been there, done that.

This is theater at its finest. But "Snakebit's" budding playwright can't take all the credit. Albright, Hoffman, Lewenthal and Robert Anthony Peters -- who shows up in the second act as the Young Man -- know exactly what buttons to press to get a reaction from us.

E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

Information

What: Theatre Q and Dragon Production presents "Snakebit" by David Marshall Grant

Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts' Second Stage, 500 Castro St.

When: Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m. Closes Aug. 22.

Cost: $15-$20

Call: 903-6000

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