At This Retirement Home, Rest Is About the Only Thing Not Happening
Kenmore’s As If Theatre Company puts up another riotous comedy, this one set in the high-stakes world of retirement home wagering. Ripcord runs through Sunday (4/6).
This place smells like cat piss and pot.
Tucked away on the top level, overlooking the park, a most unadventurous resident is used to getting her space (and her way) simply by being the most intolerable crank in the building. But when Abby gets an uninvited new roommate in Marilyn, with a relentless cheeriness that rivals the long-timer’s misanthropy, it’s game on. After Abby tries, ineffectually — with tricks and cajoling and her usual unpleasantries — to outgame Marilyn and get her peaceful space back, the two agree to go head-to-head and put a wager on who will break first. What could go wrong?
With a duo this stubborn, there’s no surprise when things escalate fast. But the heights they’ll go to are quickly extreme, ensnaring everyone around them in their small-scale all-out war, all while playing nice to keep the hapless orderly in the dark. From common pranks to drugs, thefts, and violence, will anything be left off-limits? And when all is said and done, will anyone be left standing?
Under Chris Shea’s direction, As If’s staging takes obvious glee in the high stakes these two have manufactured. Abby (Mary Machala) and Marilyn (Susan Finque) are delightful opposites and evenly matched, their characters equally grating at the right times. Abby’s no peach to be around, but it’s easy to sympathize with her instinct to sweep the incessantly chattering Marilyn back out where she came from. They’re surrounded by a great supporting cast, pulling off a contrasting sense of normalcy amid the brewing insanity: Ashlie Blaske and Brian Pucheu as a comically ride-or-die duo, Christopher Martinez as the prodigal visitor, BJ Smyth as the attendant who seems perpetually caught in the middle. And the production team has, as usual, made the most out of the limited space, hopping locations with relative ease.
The reveals in David Lindsay-Abaire’s script themselves aren’t surprising ones, but they do go surprisingly tender places. And when the show’s over, if anyone manages to make it out alive, you can’t help but wonder where their next battle will go. Sneakily sweet and comically absurd, Ripcord is another heart-y belly laugh out of Kenmore.
See full production credits here.
Ripcord runs through 4/6 at the Kenmore Community Club. Tickets ($27) here. Accessibility notes: pay-what-you-choose tickets offered at Thursday’s show (4/3); restrooms are gendered and multi-stall; theatre and common areas are wheelchair accessible.
Chase D. Anderson is Editor & Producer of NWTheatre.org.