Go With "Babs the Dodo" on Hilarious Home-Shopping Jag

THE ENSEMBLE PRESENTS: BABS THE DODO from Washington Ensemble Theatre on Vimeo.

All I knew going into Babs the Dodo (at Washington Ensemble Theatre through March 14) was that it revolved around a home-shopping personality turning 50. I'm tempted to leave you in the dark, as well, because this is a world premiere, and part of that whole thing is the thrill of exploring live theatre, going where no arts patron has gone before. 

Let me tell you a few things "about" the show before the jump, and then you can decide if you want to read on, or if the headline here is all the guidance you need.

First, the cast is outstanding: To have stage veteran Marty Mukhalian as Babs Gillespie is a lucky stroke (she was in Intiman's Paradise Lost, and Strawshop's The Laramie Project, but here she's comedy gold, whether chirping up nonsensical TV sales points or jittering out of control on an online date), but she's extraordinarily well supported by Hannah Victoria Franklin (an Ensemble regular, playing Babs' straight-for-the-jugular boss), John Abramson (Babs' cohost, Handsome Chris, a slippery-talking cardboard-cutout of middle-aged virility), and Charles Norris (the ornithologist and serial-online-dater-with-a-twist Raymond, a sweetly boyish nerd whose laugh ends in a golfer's butt waggle). 

Secondly, it's hard to believe, but this seems to be actor Elise Hunt's first time out as director. The play is tightly paced, the many scene changes are handled with aplomb and humor, and she is clearly responsible for her very funny cast being at the top of their game as an ensemble. She's also drawing upon the talents of Jessica Trundy (set and lighting), Robertson Witmer (sound), and Katie Hegarty (costumes). Trundy's magic box set, a flush, floor-to-ceiling face, all doors and cabinets, captures the depth of acquisitiveness, its revelations, while Witmer's sound merrily bings and bongs the current sales. Drink in Hegarty's costuming choices, which here, in TV land, are characterization essentials. 

Franklin, Mukhalian & Abramson in "Babs the Dodo" (Photo: Laurie Clark Photography)

Now, on to the play itself. Michael Mitnick's sense of humor is suggested, if not encapsulated, by the story he tells about dressing up in a gorilla costume, going to the supermarket, and shopping for lots and lots of bananas. Babs the Dodo is a more literal title than you might expect. Luckily it's not one magical-surrealism note--Mitnick has a lot of satirical skewering to do of the home-shopping industry as well (this ends up pulling focus, but it's so funny it's hard to begrudge a few extra minutes). 

So there we have hapless Babs, turning 50, struggling to keep her job, and there's everyone else (us included) caught up in the ceaseless buying of things we only think we need, with our heroes being the people who sell the need best.

Mitnick says he writes at night, and watching the play's note-perfect home-shopping delivery, you get the sense that the TV was often on his apartment around 3 a.m. (Hunt's work with the actors on physicality and mannerism is fantastic: Abramson's half-delirious sales pitch for a hot tub could go viral on YouTube.)

That said, there's a quirky warm-heartedness to the playwright's skewering. If he's outraged, it's by the process and its results than the people, whose humanity Mitnick redeems off-set. Everyone gets a chance to be themselves, warts and all. Even Franklin's "You're fucking fired" Jocelyn Knob is looking for love, and realizes (even as she dismissively stomps on them) the dreams and emotions at play. 

Nothing is perfect; Raymond's part is over-written (he's a little too poetic for a nerd, or nerdy for a poet), and the ending is a little sketched in: Babs' dream of becoming an eagle is unrealized, but she's become something else everyone wants a piece of. I'm not sure how to take that. In the old days, we'd have had a more lengthy anticlimax to flesh the new Babs out, but who has time! Anyway. Why grouse. It's a very good time in the theatre.