‘THE MORNING NEWS’ TAKES DARK LOOK AT AMERICAN VIOLENCE
In the opening minutes of Christopher Durang ’s black comedy “Turning Off the Morning News” at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista, a video plays featuring TV news reports of fatal shootings across America, including this month’s mass shootings in Texas, New York and California.
Then, a derangedlooking man walks onstage, locks eyes with members of the audience and says he’s feeling depressed and thinks he’ll kill himself ... or maybe he’ll shoot a bunch of people at the local mall or inside the theater first before taking his own life. Durang wrote that the 2018 play was inspired by the never-ending history of assassinations and mass slayings perpetrated by “crazy/violent American” men who want to kill other Americans “for no practical reason, or maybe they feel unhappy and want people to suffer and die.”
OnStage artistic director James P. Darvas had planned to produce the play in 2020, but the pandemic delayed its local premiere until last weekend. He said he considered canceling the production after an 18-year-old man gunned down 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., on May 14. Then he considered it again on May 15, when a 68-year-old gunman killed one and injured five at a Taiwanese church in Orange County. But, after another 18-yearold man killed 21 schoolchildren and teachers in Uvalde, Texas, last week, Darvas decided the play’s message must be heard and seen.
But finding the message in the absurdist six-character play isn’t comfortable or easy. Directed by Adam Parker with an in-your-face edgy and manic tone, the play has the feel of a children’s cartoon show that has careened out of control. Some of the characters’ lines are punctuated with a recorded laugh track, and the actors break the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience. Durang ’s trademark outof-touch-with-reality characters just aren’t as funny with a subject so serious and timely.
In the play, Jimmy is a depressed and bipolar man whose frequent threats of suicide have come to bore his loquacious wife, Polly, who cares more about her houseplants than her abusive husband or their neglected teen son, Timmy, whose name she can’t remember. Their kind and normal neighbors are Clifford and Salena, platonic friends who have moved in together after some personal setbacks, and Rosalind, a wacky mom who wears a pillowcase over her head to protect her skin from the sun. All of these characters get caught up in Jimmy’s plot to die and take others with him.
Salomón Maya plays Jimmy with a bizarre, crazy-eyed glee. He also created the show’s projections, which had to be re-edited three times because of the recent shootings. Carla Navarro plays the intentionally oblivious Polly on the knife edge of sanity. Eddy Lukovic plays Clifford as a grieving man struggling to find peace, and Ray-Anna Young is gentle and supportive as Salena. Heather Warren is a daffy Rosalind and sweet Jaden Guerrero plays the son Timmy, who’s so ignored by his family that costume designer Brad Dubious has dressed him as Waldo in the “Where’s Waldo” book series.
The 90-minute play goes down a dark path, but fortunately ends on a slight up note. The experience of this wild ride is uncomfortable and unsettling, which is probably just what Darvas and Parker are hoping for with their bold production.