Greater Tuna
Reviewed by David Kashimba
Photo courtesy of Spreckels Performing Arts Center

 Greater Tuna, at Spreckeles Performing Arts Center in beautiful Rohnert Park, is the first part of a trilogy, including A Tuna Christmas and Red, White, and Tuna that have been entertaining audiences across the country since 1982. The play is about all the unique and wildly funny characters who live in Tuna, the third-smallest town in Texas. Though the town and its inhabitants are fictitious, two actors who grew up in a small town atmosphere created them.

The son of a farmer and rancher, Jaston Williams grew up in Crosbyton, Texas. “(My father’s family) were pioneers in West Texas, incredible salt of the earth people,” Williams said. According to Williams, Tuna’s newscaster, Arles Struvie, on their conservative Radio OKKK, uses his father’s gestures and expressions.

Growing up in Bartesville, Okla., Joe Sears had cowboys and ranchers all around him. All his uncles and grandparents were ranchers and competed in rodeos. Like his partner in comedy, Sears also closely observed the people around him when he was growing up. “I had fun hanging around in the kitchen watching my aunts prepare Thanksgiving dinner.” Sears said. “The way they carried on conversation, joked with one another, I always watched that.”

Their observations while growing up, of the people around them, helped them and Ed Howard to create the characters in all three plays. While their portrayals of about 20 men and women in the plays were comic, Williams’ and Sears’ sensitivity to the characters always shone through, and the audience would laugh with them not at them. This sensitivity has been preserved in Pacific Alliance Stage Company’s production of Greater Tuna.

Audience members who grew up in small towns easily identify with the characters. Bertha Bumiller has a unique charm that reminds them of one of their aunts or former next-door neighbors. “We have these old-timer members of our family who spoke in a very specific way and had very unusual inflections, which are disappearing from our language,” Williams said. “And we try to keep those alive… I guess people feel the Tuna people are family.”

Indeed, this feeling of family is probably the key element that has made the Tuna trilogy so popular. But don’t underestimate the power of laughter because the laughs are non-stop. The first time Michael Storm goes off stage and comes back a minute later dressed up like a woman, the audience roars at the transformation.

Directed by Hector Correa, Pacific Alliance’s production of Greater Tuna, with Michael Storm and Stephen Klum, does a good job living up to this unique creation by Williams, Sears and Howard. For tickets or more information call (707) 588-3400.

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