Little Theatre’s ‘Inspecting Carol’ a mediocre production

Las Vegas Little Theatre's "Inspecting Carol" is about a terrible amateur production of "A Christmas Carol," and it's what you'd expect from a mediocre amateur production: actors so eager to be funny that they play stupid and flat. I can think of few tortures more severe than performers who are too aware of where the guffaws are.

The script is so full of potential traps that you wonder why a gifted director such as Mario Mendez would fall for all of them. A playhouse is desperately trying to salvage its troupe by putting on a fundraiser with little rehearsal time. People drop lines, screw up props, and try to impose their misguided vision on others. Tiny Tim is played by a teenager who's too heavy for his father to hoist on his shoulder. And an actor gets so carried away with his performance that he hauls himself unwittingly into the lap of a critiquing arts organization member.

It should be obvious that the only way this stuff can be as side-splitting as it's meant to be is if we see these actors as real humans doing their best to put on a good show. Mendez doesn't allow the lunacy to build naturally. He tries to grab you by the throat at the beginning before we've got our bearings. The script (by Daniel Sullivan and the Seattle Repertory Company) is a slight but still humorous read that demands a solid reality base.

Barbara Costa supplies that and more as a charmingly crotchety veteran thespian. Hallie Lyons makes for an amusingly eccentric director. And 13-year-old Jackson Langford brings a surprising three-dimensional quality to his role as an upcoming performer. Langford communicates his character's youthful energy and enthusiasm with his entire body. You never catch him acting though he acts up a storm. Neither does he go slack when the focus is not on him. His seemingly effortless approach makes his considerable achievement look easy (though we know it's not).

I just wish Mendez had approached this play with the same respect he would approach a drama. A director and his actors shouldn't be telling me when I'm supposed to laugh.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheaterchat@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.