Actresses spark laughs in romantic comedy

The title is intriguing, the dialogue is rat-a-tat repartee, the genre is romantic comedy, and the author is Omahan Jay Huse.

“The Wind Cries Verona,” Huse’s first full-length play, got a friendly premiere reception Thursday at the Shelterbelt from an audience that found plenty to laugh at.

But rare is the romantic comedy that can run much past 100 minutes, plus intermission, and justify keeping its audience with its keen insight or groundbreaking theatrical form.

“Verona,” in conventional narrative format, runs 35 minutes longer than that. Though nobody seemed bored (me included), the new work would benefit from ruthless editing to keep the story moving.

Luckily, Huse has two talented comedic actresses in the leads, and director Lorie Obradovich knows just how to use them to maximize the laughs.

“Verona” centers on Wayne (Demian Ryder), who’s having trouble meeting a deadline on his novel about the creation of the Panama Canal. He’s driving his editor, Olive (Jessica Gall), crazy, and she finally gives him a drop-dead date for delivering a book to the publisher.

Panicked, Wayne zips out a trashy romantic novel in place of the Panama treatise, under a female nom de plume, Verona de la Mere. That gives Olive a new headache: How to do a book tour with a fake author.

Enter Regina (Laci Neal), Olive’s best friend, who works for the publisher’s romance division. Regina, a sometime actress, is delighted to play Verona.

Complications ensue when the novel becomes a best seller, and both women have eyes for Wayne. But Wayne turns out to be an elusive catch since he’s a bit of a hermit who’s petrified of both flying and sex.

Dividing the tiny SNAP/Shelterbelt stage area in half (Wayne’s apartment on one side, Olive’s office on the other) leaves Obradovich little room to maneuver her cast, but she makes the most of her limitations.

The laughs come from Olive’s tendency to compulsively edit everything Wayne says, Regina’s aggressive drama-queen act and Wayne’s fixation on baseball (he’s a Pirates fan) and 1950s rock ‘n’ rollers.

Well, those things plus the characters’ agony over keeping the public ruse going about Verona de la Mere while privately wrangling over who will end up with whom, if anyone.

Ryder is good as befuddled, conflicted Wayne, but it’s the women who give “Verona” spark. Neal’s bark turns a little shrill at times, but her comedic timing and creative line readings earn laughs in less than obvious places. Gall gets the audience on her side with a combination of sweetness and sincerity, also tripping laughs. Case in point: a drunken scene in which she makes a pass at Wayne.

But that scene, and another in which Regina does Scarlett O’Hara, look like targets for trims, even as they entertain. A protracted ending sequence causes the laugh souffle to deflate a bit.

Still, “The Wind Cries Verona” contains plenty to amuse, and Huse shows a talent for turning pop-culture trivia and personal quirks into comedic pay dirt.

Contact the writer:

444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com

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