Whale, The

Tom Alan Robbins may not actually be playing Moby Dick, but he certainly looks like a great white whale in Samuel D. Hunter’s whale of a play.

Last February, even in a play reading, cast members were near tears as the dying Charlie tried to reconcile himself with his long-unseen and determinedly difficult daughter, Ellie (Nicole Rodenburg). This time `round — in a fully staged production — Robbins faced an even more difficult reconciliation, for he was playing Charlie in a fat, fat, fat-suit: One hundred pounds of foamy padding, complete with 12-pockets for ice packs to cool the thespian body.

Although Charlie was once married and had sired a child along the way, he discovered that he was gay, abandoning an angry wife and tiny daughter for a lover who has, long-since, died of the plague.

The lover’s sister, Liz the Nurse (Angela Reed), now tries to keep Charlie alive, against all odds, especially the oddball Charlie. Since his epic loss, an already zaftig Charlie has grown immensely fat, almost unable to move. He supports himself by correcting online English comp essays. This doesn’t seem to be as learning-effective as proponents of virtual schooling — such as 43’s brothers, Jeb and Marvin Bush — would have you believe.

In addition to the angry ex-wife and the take-no-hostages daughter, there’s also a feckless young unfrocked-Mormon-missionary in the madly-disjointed emotional mix.

Cory Michael Smith is strangely appealing and compassionate as an outcast LDS who still longs to help someone. His Elder Thomas wouldn’t be out of place in The Book of Mormon: the Musical (though not the actual Joseph Smith Revelation).