Oil Lamp Brings In “The Outsider”
By Wes Hessel with Beth Tomas
Oil Lamp Theater is presenting an outright hilarious and painfully funny political commentary play. The Director’s Note in the program begins with the sentence, “The best public servants aren’t necessarily suited for politics and the best politicians aren’t necessarily interested in serving us.” It goes on to talk about how the play is about “the clash between civics and politics” – it is a perfectly apt and appropriate description of “The Outsider”.
The Lt. Governor, Ned Newley (played by William Ryder), who would rather bury himself in the actual work of the office, than the political work of facing …and speaking…to the public, is thrust into the role of Governor due to a scandal that forced his predecessor to step down. The premise acted out leads the audience into a great deal of second-hand embarrassment for all the characters from the cringe-worthy humor in the truth style of this play.
Louise Peakes, “the temp”, deftly played by Jenna Steege, is over the top uproarious in both physical and spoken comedy. The character struggles with remembering anything – constantly reintroducing herself to the Chief of Staff, Dave Riley (Michael Morrow) with an invasively warm hug – all the while confidently stating that she is well qualified for any job. She knows this because she walks in not knowing anything, and that at the end of a single day on any job she knows she’s done well because the employer informs her that she is “no longer needed.”
Dave Riley appears to be the only “sane” member of the bunch – he is constantly overwhelmed by the bravado of Louise, the pollster Paige Caldwell (Melody Rowland), and National News superstar Arthur Vance (Andrew Bosworth). I just felt like I wanted to hug Dave and let him know he was right and that everything will be OK…someday.
He does find comfort in local news reporter Rachel Parsons (Sara DiPasquale). She wants desperately to do the job of a journalist, but is hamstrung by her boss who tells her to softball her interviews with the new Governor and the now new candidate for Lt. Governor – Louise Peakes. Dave and Rachel connect on the fact that they both want to do their actual jobs, but are held back because of politics.
In addition to laughing out loud throughout the play, I found myself also reflecting on how true the story seems in today’s politics – no matter one’s party affiliation. So be a party to this entertaining exercise in political plotting (or is that plodding?), but be sure to do it by February 22nd, when this party is over. For tickets or more information, please see www.oillamptheater.org.
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