'Exit, Pursued by a Bear' at Convergence-Continuum Lacks Almost Everything

Have you been laughing too much lately? Have you been binging Arrested Development and Kristin Wiig’s SNL sketches, or watching stand-up performances by Patton Oswalt? Do you need to give your tickled ribs a rest for about an hour? Well, here’s the show for you: Exit, Pursued by a Bear, now at Convergence-Continuum Theater.

The wayward and weirdly flaccid production of this self-described revenge comedy by Lauren Gunderson is so absent of humor, it could be medically prescribed as a soporific for those needing coma-level sleep. It’s not a good sign that the title itself is a reference to a curious stage direction in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, revealing a tendency by the Gunderson to be both quirky and unoriginal.

Indeed, the script as performed amounts to death by a dozen quirks in its 70-minute run time. It all begins with a dude named Kyle Carter (Casey McCann) duct-taped to a chair in a home somewhere in Georgia. Failed Comedic Device #1: The characters all talk in some version of a southern dialect, following the “Hee-Haw Rule” that anything said in that manner must be funny because, you know, all southern people are stupid.

Kyle has been immobilized by his wife Nan Carter (Amanda Rowe-Van Allen). Failed Comic Device #2: The last name of Carter is important because Nan wants to be married to President Jimmy Carter and quotes him often. And we all know how hilarious Jimmy Carter was.

There is also a metatheatrical gimmick—Failed Comic Device #3—which plays off the title by displaying a few of this play’s stage directions on a screen. Note to playwright: Just because Shakespeare did it once doesn’t make stage directions funny.

But back to the plot: Budding feminist Nan wants to leave Kyle because of his abuse. Was the abuse physical or emotional? Was it mild or horrific? Playwright Gunderson doesn’t share, we just have to accept the fact that it was probably really bad. Really.

But instead of just cutting and running from this supposedly abusive household, Nan—along with her gal pal Sweetheart (Hayley Johnson) and gay friend Simon (a fitfully amusing Zavier McLean)—decide for no apparent reason to act out scenes from Nan and Kyle’s fraught past before they exact their revenge on him.

At this point, the audience is not just suspending disbelief, they’re chucking disbelief over the gunwales by the bucket-load in a futile attempt to keep this non-farcical farce afloat. Unfortunately, the little playlets tarted up with lame wordplay are as unfunny as the play that surrounds them.

Once Nan and her cohorts have exhausted their scene exercises, they bring out chunks of venison, dressed and neatly packaged in plastic bags, which they array around Kyle while also dousing him with honey. The plan is to leave the door open when they leave so a local black bear will smell the meat, enter, and devour it all along with hapless Kyle.

Trouble is, they don’t take the meat out of the plastic bags, which you would do if you wanted to attract a bear. And that serves as an ideal metaphor for a play that never commits to its weird characters or potentially compelling story elements, keeping it all Ziploc-ed and unreachable. And it all ends with a karaoke song because, hell, why not?

In this production, there is no evidence that director Kate Smith knows how to structure or pace a dark comedy that is trying mightily to blend goofiness with a tragic relationship. In the end, all Exit… succeeds in doing is boring the audience while trivializing feminism, spousal abuse and bears. And a final note to playwright Gunderson: Keep Shakespeare’s words out your damn mouth.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear
Through September 2 produced by Convergence-Continuum Theater performing at The Liminis Theater, 2438 Scranton Road, Cleveland, 216-687-0074, convergence-continuum.org.

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