Some shows play things close to the vest as long as they can, and reveal their intentions progressively. “Tumacho” is not one of them.
Ethan Lipton’s delirious play with music starts with a chorus of singing puppet cactuses. Phillipa Soo (late of “Hamilton” and “Amélie”) enters, playing a pigtailed gunslinger, and shoots each cactus dead. Actually, one literally dies of fright.
The rest of the evening follows suit, which is fitting for a supernatural Western comedy involving a soul-sucking demon.
To paraphrase the wise singer David St. Hubbins in “This Is Spinal Tap,” it’s such a fine line between silly and stupid. Thankfully, this show always falls on the right side of that line.
Now back for an encore run at the Connelly Theater, “Tumacho” premiered in 2016 as part of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks — a series that also gave us “What the Constitution Means to Me” in 2017 and “Men on Boats” in 2015. The company’s mission is to develop and produce “funny, strange and provocative” new American plays; “Tumacho” is too goofy to be provocative — unless a couple of dopey scatological jokes are enough to unsettle you — but it certainly scores on the other two counts. It’s easy to see why the director Leigh Silverman (“Grand Horizons,” “Violet”) and an array of superlative actors signed up for this wonderful lark.
Soo’s Catalina Vucovich-Villalobos lives in a godforsaken “one-horse town where the horse broke down,” as the cactuses put it. The population has taken a nosedive thanks to the nefarious actions of one Bill Yardley (Andrew Garman), who dresses all in black, as villains are wont to do. The blustery, buffoonish Mayor Evans (John Ellison Conlee) is unable to stop Bill, so you can imagine how ill-prepared he is when a prophecy announcing a demon’s return finally comes true.
Tumacho once “ran roughshod over these parts,” Doc Alonzo (Gibson Frazier) tells the handsome visitor Clement (Chinaza Uche) — who gets mistakenly shot by the trigger-happy Catalina. Now, that evil spirit is set to take over the body of an unsuspecting citizen and launch a new reign of terror.
Tumacho — it would be unbecoming to reveal which character becomes possessed — sucks people almost dry, leaving just enough that they don’t die, and still has room for ungodly amounts of food, served by the cook Chappy (Andy Grotelueschen, a recent Tony Award nominee for “Tootsie” — told you the cast was ace). Bill, of course, joins the force of darkness, becoming Renfield to Tumacho’s Dracula.
The show moves at a fast clip, sustained by a parade of gleefully whimsical scenes and inspired non sequiturs. At one point, Catalina declares: “Chappy, I know what I have to do!” To which he replies: “You’re gonna dress up like a badger and move into my cellar?”
As if this weren’t enough, Lipton peppers the show with terrific music — those who caught such previous hybrid-genre shows as “The Outer Space” know how good a music-maker he is. Backed by Matthew Dean Marsh on piano, guitar and banjo, the actors occasionally launch into songs that, at their best, like “Home,” have the effortless, beautiful simplicity of ditties passed on from one cowboy campfire to the next. Even a no-good varmint could swoon.
Tumacho
Through March 21 at the Connelly Theater, Manhattan; 212-260-0153, clubbedthumb.org. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.
Source: Theater - nytimes.com
