PHOTOS AND REVIEWS:  A FEW PRODUCTIONS                Go Back

GREATER TUNA by Joe Sears & Jaston Williams
(7 different productions at regional theatres across the country!)

See a few reviews below.

       

VIDEO CLIP

 

"Ligon is extraordinary when portraying an evangelical character that uses every cliche
in the Good Book (and plenty of others)."  -- Peter Filchia, The Star Ledger

"Ligon is vastly entertaining as a matronly homemaker who is raising three dysfunctional teenagers.
He's also hilarious in a funeral scene, with a unique opportunity to tell off the corpse of a hanging judge.
And he's a hoot as a preacher who shows up to give a eulogy."   -- Liz Keill, Independent Press

"Jim Ligon creates characters chock-full of surprises. His Bertha Bumiller and
Pearl Burras are masterfully wrought."   -- Richmond Times Distpatch

 

"Jim Ligon brings down the house as the cancerous Rev. Spikes."   -- Culpepper Star-Exponent

                                                           

"Ligon is outstanding"   -- Post Standard

 

"Jim Ligon is a riot as Pearl Burras, local chicken farmer and dog poisoner. He brings down the house
in the scene in the funeral parlor with his triumphant song of revenge to the dead Judge... As the energetic
Reverend Spikes he gives a very funny eulogy made up entirely of cliches. Mr. Ligon is wonderful as
Bertha Bumiller, harassed mother of three."  -- North Country Public Radio



Jim Ligon & Michael Irvin Pollard in Greater Tuna at the What Exit? Theatre Company

IN 'GREATER TUNA,' TALENTED TWO MAKE QUITE A CAST OF CHARACTERS
IN SATIRIC SLICE OF LIFE

by Peter Filichia, for The Star-Ledger
Monday, April 6, 2009

They're portraying plenty of "good' ol boys," but both Jim Ligon and Michael Irvin Pollard emerge as great ol' boys in "Greater Tuna."

In this play, the two actors must play 20 characters -- male, female, young and old -- who live in a Texas town. The locale is mythical, but it will seem all too believable to Maplewood audiences who drop by the What Exit? Theatre Company (in its ever-improving facility).

The 1982 comedy by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard starts unassumingly enough, with two deejays filling us in on the local news. There isn't much happening in the sleepy town of Greater Tuna -- or so they think. But for the next two hours, we meet citizens who don't just have revenge fantasies but revenge realities. There's police brutality, cadaver-tampering and an astonishing amount of plain old mean-spiritedness as well.

Many Tunanians don't dispense cracker-barrel humor; they're just plain crackers. So here's a warning to PETA members and sympathizers: Cruelty to animals is a way of life for some residents of Tuna.

But the town makes time for culture, too. Each week, the radio station offers an "Arts Minute." The deejays also applaud the Tuna Little Theatre's offer to blacks and Mexicans to come down and try out for the next production -- for there are many chorus roles available.

The three authors spent a good deal of time stressing the small-mindedness of the town. There's much talk of censoring books such as "Huckleberry Finn," because Huck dresses in women's clothes.

So, by the way, do Ligon and Pollard. When Ligon must play an overweight woman in a yellow polyester pants suit, he's utterly -- and scarily -- convincing. Later, when he portrays a much older and even heftier woman, Ligon shows how she must carefully plan her lifting herself off the ground to stand on a chair. It's a small moment, only a dozen or so seconds long, but it's easily one of the most hilarious ones in the show.

When Pollard plays a teenage girl intent on cheerleading, his attempts at femininity aren't as believable, thanks to his quite hairy midriff. But that, of course, is part of the fun.

The two actors are equally impressive when they must revert to playing men, too. Ligon is extraordinary when portraying an evangelical character that uses every cliche in the Good Book (and plenty of others). Pollard excels as a sheriff whose mouth is never without that requisite toothpick. How wonderfully moody he is, too, as a rebellious teen who wouldn't be caught dead without his Dead Kennedys T-shirt.

Each is marvelous, too, in creating a distinctly different voice for every character. Did Maria Callas ever scan as many octaves as these guys, going from their winsome feminine voices to guttural masculine ones that sound right off the chain gang? The Southern accents are spot on, too, and enhance such lines as "I am as serious as a stroke."

Given all the costumes and wigs these two must don, backstage must resemble a chaotic thrift shop. That's why Ligon, who also directed, demanded that three dressers stay backstage to help him and Pollard get into each pair of pants or pantyhose. At the curtain call, the dressers receive a bow, too, and they certainly deserve it.

After "Greater Tuna" finishes its Maplewood run, it takes a month off, undoubtedly so Ligon and Pollard can get some well-earned rest. Then it reopens on May 14 at the Bickford Theatre in Morris Township. What a shame it will close there, for it deserves to travel to every New Jersey town with an available theater.