Far Off Broadway to present small town comedy
‘Greater Tuna’ debuets on Central Middle School stage
The Grafton High School’s Far Off Broadway will present the comedy “Greater Tuna,” a story about life in a small town, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 14-16. The cast will take centerstage at 7 p.m. each evening at the Central Middle School auditorium.
“Greater Tuna,” written by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard, reveals a normal day in Tuna, the third smallest town in Texas, where anybody’s business is everybody’s business and there is an opinion to be shared at all times. The glue of the town is the local radio station where all the town news, regardless of significance, is broadcast – if they remember to turn the transmitter on. Either listening to or speaking through the same station is virtually every resident of Tuna who tunes in to get their daily dose of gossip, weather and farm reports. These townspeople represent the small town mentality that exists everywhere.
Throughout the course of the play, the audience will become part of this small town and recognize people from life in their own town. They will discover small town rivalry, a dose of bigotry, endeavors by the Smut Catchers of the New Order to ban certain books, a young delinquent son just returning from reform school, a woman who hates dogs enough to poison them despite living with a $2000 bird dog, an invitation to come and burn all rock and roll records except for Buddy Holly and Elvis since they are good ol’ southern boys, a puppy pusher, a preacher who speaks only in clichés, and on it goes.
The authors have taken all that is embarrassing and tragic in American cultural history and used it to fuel the humor of the play. The humor of the play comes from the fact that the people of Tuna are completely ignorant of their ignorance. They are completely without any sort of façade or pretentious front. As soon as something is in their heads, it comes out of their mouths which sets the stage for humor. But the most endearing aspect is that the people of Tuna love their little, unique town even though it attracts dust and tropical storms, locusts, unidentified flying chalupas, and one of their own, Judge Roscoe Buckner, was found dead wearing a one-piece Dale Evans swimsuit with lots of cowgal fringe. It’s no wonder Tuna is small and shrinking, but if someone were to ask any of the Tuna citizens, they would say that Tuna is paradise. To them, Tuna is one of the few remaining beacons of virtue in a fallen world.