There are election-season jokes being made in Boca Raton, Fla., these days, but they're not about butterfly ballots or hanging chads. Rather, Caldwell Theater Company has mounted a fluffy if middling confection called Lying in State, in which a state legislator's death touches off a panic over who will run for his seat his ex, his girlfriend, his brother, his go-fer? -- during which time his body goes missing from the funeral home.
Lying in State is the second of two plays written by David C. Hyer, a longtime lobbyist who died in 2003 not long after writing it. If he'd lived longer, maybe Hyer would have honed this play. As it is, Lying isn't as cutting as satire and isn't as loud as farce -- the setting, after all, is a viewing room at a funeral parlor, and even these quirky characters wouldn't be slamming doors there.
(Audiences seeking currency may remember that John Ashcroft, before becoming attorney general, lost his Senate seat in 2000 to an opponent who died during the campaign, and may note that the play presents the possibility of a woman candidate who has emerged from a difficult marriage and who is a former stutterer.)
Lying in State has become a popular choice among producers scattered around the country this year. Caldwell's version delivers a few laughs and some baffling lapses. Why, for example, do female characters change their clothes as the action progresses, but male characters seem to wear the same shirts and ties? Surely not all of them stayed out all night.
The action: Ed, a state senator with an inflated view of himself, in death has become an instant national hero amid reports that he was shot defending his home against assailants. He left no dearth of directions for post-death arrangements. For one, the casket should be closed (a good thing, or there'd be no play). For another, ex-wife Edna should supervise, so there she is when campaign manager Herb (Allan Baker) shows up desperate to find a replacement candidate and settles on her. Except that Buttons, Ed's semi-official fiancée and a self-described "semi-erotic dancer," says his last words were that she should succeed him. And Ed's tipsy brother, Harry, enjoying his own a bit of celebrity, says Ed wanted him to get the seat. Oh, and Fred, the governor of this undisclosed state, says the seat should go to Ed's aide, Wally -- and that Ed's body should go to the capitol rotunda. And Margo, with a canvas bag full of prescription drugs, wanders in from a viewing room nearby in time to answer a call from the president.
And speaking of seats, Edna divorced Ed after he shot her in hers (oh, those colorful squirrels). Herb sees her stint of victimhood as a big asset in an election. "Victims are bigger than heroes in this country," he enthuses.
Among the cast Allan Baker as the frantic Herb and Kim Ostrenko as the ditzy and wise Buttons get a lot of mileage from physical humor. Laura Turnbull's Edna is almost unflappable at this point in her post-Ed life. Angie Radosh's loud Margo is good for some well-timed laughs. And John Felix as Harry is a treat -- but given the character's newfound celebrity as a self-help author, wouldn't Harry have a jacket that fit better?
