Tire-wielding bass-quackers, teddy bears, Kung Fu, rock music and a little Hamlet. This makes up the world of The Assumption—a super-fun, playfully random, wholly modern deviation on the Bard’s most famous tragedy from Refraction Arts.

The show starts from the moment you arrive, greeted by box office staff with Yosemite Sam Southern accents and a tendency to drop “fuck” into most of their sentences. You’re not allowed into the theatre, but one of these future shotgun brides happily escorts trains of patrons back and forth from the restroom with the kind of crass swagger you’d expect from a young, drunk Dolly Parton. To your left, a group of oddly-dressed, mullet-sportin’, backwater misfits drinks beer, acts dumb, and further specifies the tone for the evening. All the while you sit, quietly sipping your Miller Lite, waiting for something to happen.

And then it does. This is the beginning of some excellent direction by Sonnet Blanton and Julia M. Smith. The two have crafted a visually compelling, well-shaped performance that’s not only clear (especially significant when working with a text that’s just barely linear), but entertaining as well. They maximize every nook, cranny and corner of the Blue Theater to their advantage, move effortlessly from scenes into songs and back again, creating both a well-defined environment and a believably ridiculous set of characters to inhabit it.

But credit here also must also go to the talented cast of performers. Jeffrey Mills, playing Chester—the proverbial firstling of the genetically interwoven family of ultra-hicks, is knock-down, drag-out, holy-shit hysterical. Ron Berry, head of the household, is also a stand-out—most notably for an inspired sequence in which he describes the different connotations he attributes to his many varied glue-on moustaches. We won’t ruin the whole thing, but take this as an example: the wiry-framed Berry proudly proclaims (and demonstrates) to the audience that he wears a “moustache of man-nation”, which—in an ode to all that is both magical and incredibly stupid—allows him to get in touch with his butch side. Classic.

The show isn’t perfect. Blanton and Smith have tried to include quite a bit of gestural choreography into the performance, which—when it doesn’t take itself too seriously—is cute, but more often drags on endlessly, feels unmotivated, and—as result of a particularly cringe-worthy sequence leading up to the show’s climax (think Stomp, but worse)—just about derailed the second act. Plus, while we enjoyed the cleverly-written, hodge-podge text created by writers Rebecca Beegle, Ron Berry, Sonnet Blanton, Jeffrey Mills and Cyndi Williams—a few of the production’s elements felt like afterthoughts, or pieces of unrealized potential, as they were never fully integrated in the performance. While the pace and energy of the show kept us engaged throughout moments of disorientation, the production may have been even more exciting without this unnecessary baggage.

That being said, don’t let this stop you from headin' out to the Blue, crackin' open your favorite canned refreshment, and checking out The Assumption. It’s intelligent, it’s creative, and it’s a damn good time. We highly recommend it.

The Assumption
Thur–Sat thru November 10
Blue Theater [map]
8pm
[Tickets]