The Real Mystery Is Why He Thinks His Play Is Funny

It was an auspicious occasion, a play's world premiere and a theater group's debut performance. Within 10 minutes of the opening scene, my mind was drifting through deep philosophical currents.

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is present," I wondered, "does it make a sound?"

What I really wanted to know was whether the tree question was related to a situation in which a comedy is performed but only the playwright laughs. Does the laughter still count? And what is the metaphysical relationship between an exclamation point in a work's title and the work being excruciatingly bad? (Fans of "Oklahoma!" and "Oliver!" will take exception, but the curse generally prevails.)

Then I snapped back to reality. I was supposed to review a play, not escape into thought. My head clearing, I noticed several people furtively slipping out of their seats and treading toward the exits. I wanted to join them, but I stayed put and suffered through "!Corked" by Scot Walker, now onstage from Twenty-First Century Theatre. And, yes, the exclamation point comes before the title, perhaps a failed attempt to ward off the Exclamation Point Curse.

"!Corked" is described as a "screwball comedy murder mystery," and it is: A bunch of screwball characters murder the concept of comedy while the plot remains pretty much a mystery.

"!Corked" is set in a Virginia castle surrounded by a moat filled with banana-eating "crocodottles." Inside, somebody is killed while trying to catch a poisoned champagne cork with his teeth. Whodunit? Walker offers a set of loony suspects, but it doesn't really matter because he spends the next two hours in a self-indulgent, unfocused and definitely unfunny showcase of adolescent personal fixations, many of which seem to revolve around bananas, "dwarfs" and "midgets," to borrow his terminology.

A psychoanalyst would have more fun with this production than a theater reviewer.

Walker borrows the conventions of the murder mystery genre. There are the requisite hidden passages, blackouts accompanied by screams, and a detective grilling suspects as a storm howls outside the remote castle. There's lots of running about by the seven cast members, most of whom seem uncomfortable and, at times, embarrassed.

The plot shifts and convolutes . . . the dead guy is alive . . . now he's dead again . . . now he's . . . oh, who cares. The story is buried under a barrage of old, recycled jokes, puns and would-be comic shtick until it is a muddled jumble. Walker works in a few Falls Church and D.C. area references, but not enough to generate relevance.

Director Bernie Cohen has an uneven cast, with several who should never be onstage and several who might be quite good with decent material. But he has not imposed any sense of comic timing on them, and the show just lurches along.

Walker, who is a published poet, should be applauded for following his dream and going through the immense amount of work to get his play mounted. He enjoyed seeing it come alive before an audience on the opening weekend, guffawing after almost every line. But Walker was the only one laughing. There were polite chuckles a half-dozen times, usually after some egregious pun, but no truly mirthful reaction. It's unclear whether Twenty-First Century Theatre will be around after this production, but if it is, let's hope it finds a play to produce in which the audience can share in the fun.

"!Corked" continues through July 30, performed by Twenty-First Century Theatre at the James Lee Community Theater, 2855 Annandale Rd., Falls Church. Showtime Friday and Saturday evenings is at 8, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. The July 30 performance is at 7 p.m. For reservations, call 202-247-1108 (TTY 711) or send an e-mail toCentury21Theatre@yahoo.com.