No animals were harmed during the course of Barbecue, but an awful lot of fun was poked at two low-life families, one white, the other black, who have gathered in a park to pull off an intervention. In Robert O’Hara’s outrageous, fiendishly clever comedy, one family suddenly replaces the other after a blackout, with identical names and behavior. It’s the playwright’s way of reminding us, without warning or preaching, that these people are brethren under the skin, interchangeable in the way they deal with life by drinking, swearing, smoking, and clowning around to excess. They are also brutally honest with each other, firing verbal barbs that contain raw, powerful truths that sometimes stun the other person, make him reach desperately for that Jack Daniels bottle. Lillie Anne, Adlean, James T, Little Annie and Marie may be rude, insulting, and crude in the extreme, but they are also gloriously alive and funny, human to the core. And in their clumsy, crazy fashion they are trying to do good: persuade Barbara, the black sheep of the family (“that crack-smokin’, booze-happy ‘ho”), to agree to go into rehab in an Alaskan drug clinic. To do it, they must first bind and gag her, make her listen to all the reasons why a long stay at “Halcyon Dreams” will turn her hellacious life around. O’Hara has more tricks up his sleeve. In a second act, he goes back, not forward, in time; then in yet another act, makes a sudden, huge leap into the future. To specify further would be to give too much away; let’s just say that it involves showbiz and a night at the Oscars, with the buffoonery turning into satire. To make a play with this many changes and switches work is no mean feat. Thanks to its highly skilled cast and director, Barbecue sizzles like pork ribs on fiery coals.
