Local actor is transformed in tragicomedy ‘The Whale’
Tall and lean, actor Travis Ammons was surprised to be cast as a dying, 600-pound man in the tragicomedy “The Whale” playing through April 24 at The Kaleidoscope.
“The costuming is fantastic,” said the Westbury resident, who recently moved from Bellaire with his wife, Katrina Ellsworth, who also appears in the Bayou City Theatrics production.
BCT founder Colton Berry, who directed “The Whale,” said a “fat suit” was necessary because the Kaleidoscope is “such an intimate space that we couldn’t use cinematic makeup and prosthetics.”
“The audience is so up close and the play is so rooted in reality that there was no room for error,” said Berry.
“It’s not that bad,” said Ammons, saying cold packs are stuffed into the “fat suit” to help regulate his body temperature.
Ammons, who graduated from Memorial High School in 1989, is primarily known as a Houston film hyphenate, including his work writing, directing and appearing in “Suicide Notes,” which swept the top five awards in 2013’s WorldFest Houston competition.
Berry has directed Ammons three times at BCT, and Ammons directed the group’s April production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
In “The Whale,” Ammons stars as Charlie, a morbidly obese online English instructor who “buries himself in eating as a relief to his personal turmoil,” said costume designer Brandie Frye.
The frustrated teacher, divorced parent and victim of misguided religious zealotry in northern Idaho refuses medical care.
Instead, he accepts his impending death, but in return he forces the play’s other characters — including his ex-wife, daughter, best friend and a visitor — to confront their painful lives with honesty.
“It is such an incredible take on real life,” said Berry.
Charlie must be costumed realistically in order for the audience to buy into the authenticity of the entire production and not be distracted by unrealistic costuming, said Berry.
Frye, whose daughter, Ashley, runs lights and sound for the show, said she scoured the Internet to learn how other costumers have undertaken building a “fat suit” and compared that to her situation and the supplies and tools she had available.
“Polystyrene beads were used for the stomach and chest pieces and as filler within pieces that were custom-made to fit the actor’s measurements,” she said. “BBs were used to drag down the character’s chest down and to add droop.”
Down feathers and soft poly-fill added weight and density to the bottom stomach section of the suit.
In addition to Ammons and Ellsworth, the cast features Emily Brown, Natasha Gorel and Jacob Perkel.
The production introduces Houston audiences to playwright Samuel D. Hunter, whose “The Whale” won the prestigious Lucille Lortel Award for outstanding play in 2013.
Hunter, who was born in 1981 in Moscow, Idaho, now lives in New York City.
He was awarded a $625,000 “genius grant” in 2014 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Announcing the prize, the foundation wrote, “Born and raised in a small Idaho town, (Hunter) sets much of his work in his native region, within the nondescript confines of staff break rooms, cramped apartments, and retirement homes inhabited by ordinary people in search of more meaningful human connections.
“Despite the stark realism of his settings, Hunter leavens his plays with humor and compassion for the lives he depicts, while juxtaposing the banal circumstances of his characters with literary allusions and larger themes of faith and doubt.”