Somers Village Players’ “Dearly Departed” ‘delightful’

SOMERS — Corndogs, Holy rollers, and Dairy Queen Dilly bars have rarely been so funny as they are in the uproarious, tear-inducing white-trash comedy about death in “Dearly Departed,” by The Village Players.
In this dinner-theater production at Joanna’s Café and Banquet facility, a family patriarch, Bud, kicks the bucket suddenly, and the extended and colorful family comes together to pay their last respects.
Not normally what one would think of as fodder for laughter, but this play, written by David Bottrell and Jessie Jones, sets the riotously funny tone right out of the gate.
Rayelle, played by the incomparable Betty Domer, reads a letter to her soon to be dead husband, Bud, from her sister-in-law, Marguerite, complaining of her friend, stating, “I am pleased to report that she’s not so uppity since her nephew went to the electric chair,” adding, “She says she gets choked up every time she pays the electric bill.”
Marguerite, played by Joan Perkins-Smith, is the Bible-quoting, God-fearing sister to her dead brother Bud who gets some of the best lines in the show.
She has a near-do-well son, Royce, played by Tyler Anderson, who just got laid off from working at the sewage plant, and has goals of getting married and having a baby so he can live on welfare.
As soon as Marguerite hears about her brother’s death, she says, “Bud’s not going to keep long in this heat.” And when he is in the casket she comments, “He looks like Miss Kitty on ‘Gunsmoke.’”
When Suzanne (Dorrie Mitchell) finds out that down-and-out Junior, (John McKone) is having an affair, Marguerite bluntly tells her to snap out of her self-pity, saying, “I got a son in the pen-A-tent-U-ary, and you don’t see me wallering on the floor."
This play could easily have deteriorated into mean and unkind stereotypes, but the actors all invest their roles with such pathos and compassion that they come across as real, believable characters doing the best they can with what little they have materially and intellectually.
Rarely is there a play where the backstage crew spend almost as much time on stage as the actors, but there are so many scene changes in “Dearly Departed” — in the first act and 8 in the second — that the crew and stage manager Gus Rousseau deserve special credit for doing so many quick changes so seamlessly.
Credit too goes to stage manager Franc Aguas and his crew, who made those two fine and comic cars that brings a smile to my face just thinking of them.
The southern rock music piped in during the numerous blackouts also helps the transitions fly by. After a while it feels like an episode of the old “Hee Haw” comedy hour, which is part of the show’s strength and the source of its weakness.
There are a couple of mini-scenes, like the wheelchair scene and the celebrity named children scene, which are funny enough on their own, but are out of context with the rest of the play and feel extraneous.
The dialog is priceless and the comic-time superb, but the one who says the least almost steals the show. Delightful, played by Sue Moak, never says more than a couple of words, but she is hysterically funny and perfectly sweet at the same time. The attentive way she eats her potato chips and then her M&Ms, with a little flourish of the hand after each M, makes it difficult at times to pay attention to anything else on the stage.
What makes these characters so consistently funny is that their humor is based on their characters and not on stereotypical one-liners, although there are a number of those.
Most of the actors in The Village Players have been in shows together for years, making them already a family of sorts, and they exude that familiar feeling of intimacy.
The fine basic meal at Joanna’s before the show of salad, roast beef, new potatoes, green beans, and pasta, along with dessert and coffee, is a great way to start the “Delightful” evening.

DEARLY DEPARTED
3 stars
Theater: The Village Players
Location: Joanna’s Café and Banquet House, 145 Main Street, Somers
Running time: 2 hours with one intermission.
Show Times: Friday and Saturday. Social hour starting at 6 p.m. Dinner at 7 p.m. Show at 8 p.m.
Tickets: $33, including dinner, with cash bar. Call 860-749-0245 for reservations.
Production: Written by David Bottrell and Jessie Jones. Directed by Mark Depathy. Technical direction by Justin Taylor. Stage Manager Gus Rousseau. Set design and décor by Franc Aguas. Props and set props by Diane Preble. Costumes by Joyce Benson and Franc Aguas. Stage crew Stacy Baral, Ben Bugden, Steven Stoyer, Trish Urso, David Crowell, and Wendy Peterson.
Actor …. Character
Betty Domer … Raynelle
Doug Stoyer … Ray Bud, Bud
Joan Perkins-Smith … Marguerite
Tyler Anderson … Royce
Darlene LaPointe … Lucille
John McKone … Junior
Dorrie Mitchell … Suzanne
Ron Blanchette … Rev. Hooker, Norval, Clyde
Sue Moak … Delightful, Nadine
Cheryl Samborski … Juanita, Veda