Final helping
Actors Jonathan Beck Reed and Donald Jordan reflect on Tuna, Texas, and playing its colorful denizens.
Jonathan Beck Reed is cherishing one of the last times he will sit at a wobbly table across from his best friend and chat about the events of the day in their close-knit community.
At least, it will be one of the last times he does that on stage, wearing a fake mustache, talking into an old-fashioned microphone and playing the role of a fictional small-town radio show host.
Reed, one of the co-founders of Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre, and Donald Jordan, CityRep’s founding artistic director, are giving their last performances together of the popular two-man show “Greater Tuna” Friday through Sunday at the Civic Center’s Freede Little Theatre.
“Even though we are close friends and will continue to see a lot of each other, and work together in future shows, I will miss working with my dear friend Don on the ‘Tuna’ plays,” Reed said. “It’s been one of the most rewarding partnerships one could ever hope to have, and, when it finally comes to a close, I will mostly miss Don.”
CityRep has produced “Greater Tuna” — the first of the series of four wildly successful two-man plays written by Bartlesville native Joe Sears, Jaston Williams and Ed Howard — once before, in 2013. But Jordan and Reed have served up four other servings of “Tuna” by staging the popular holiday sequel “Tuna Christmas” in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2016.
The comedies remain the two best-selling productions in the theater’s 16-season history. But Jordan said the time is right for Reed and him to bid farewell the fictional hamlet of Tuna, Texas, and its colorful denizens, since he feels like the current production is the best they’ve ever done.
“Between us, we’ve done 19 productions of the ‘Tuna’ plays, over 33 years in several states,” Jordan said. “Jonathan and I each first encountered the plays in our 20s at the start of our careers, and we were very fortunate and grateful to enjoy success with them then and ever since, both together and separately. I will be turning 60 in a few months, and part of every actor's life is recognizing the
evolution of your instrument . ... To everything there is a season.”
In an email Q&A, Jordan and Reed reflected on this weekend’s final trips to Tuna.
Q: What has been the most challenging aspect of performing these two-man shows?
Jonathan Beck Reed: The “Tuna” plays are designed to appear deceptively simple to the audience, but the sheer size and scope of the artistic challenge is formidable. Playing 10 characters, male, female, young, middle-aged, old, calls for a great deal of the actor's craft.
When you add in 24 costume changes each, and that they are quick changes where you literally have only seconds to make the transformation, sometimes while still carrying on a dialogue, you have an amount
of work equal to three or four "regular" plays . ... There are no breaks except intermission — every moment of the plays we are both working at breakneck speed.
Q: Of the residents of Tuna, Texas, which has been your favorite character to play?
Reed: Without question, my favorite character to play is Arles Struvie. I love him. He’s a kindhearted gentlemen Texan who loves to spin a yarn, and has the verbal dexterity of an engaging cowboy storyteller. Although his primary function in "Greater Tuna" is to serve as one half of a kind of “Greek chorus” commentator on Radio Station OKKK, in the subsequent plays, his role is fleshed out to reveal a much more complex and dear character whose compassionate, kind and wickedly witty.
Donald Jordan: So many of these characters are very close to home for me . ... I do think Thurston and Arles, the radio hosts, are perhaps the closest to Jonathan and me, both very comfortable in and enjoying each other's company, they find each other funny and start and finish each other's stories and sentences.
Q: What has been your favorite character to see your partner play?
Jordan: Watching him play any of them would make me say "What a fine actor” — his cumulative performance is what makes his work truly breathtaking.
Reed: Don’s portrayal of Bertha Bumiller moves me. He imbues this long-suffering housewife with such depth, nuance and complexity of character that elevates her well beyond her initial function in the play to simply be funny.
Q: What will you miss most now that you will no longer be visiting Tuna, Texas, on stage?
Jordan: Knowing the time has come to say goodbye is bittersweet, so we have spent time in the dressing room making new dreams for shows we would like to bring to CityRep and OKC. But I do not think there will ever be any other shows that call upon us in so grand a fashion, challenging us to use so much of our theatricality and life experience in a single play.
Tuna, Texas is a magical place filled with laughter, humanity, memories, family and the best friends any fellow could want.