Theatre: Special Guests Mump and Smoot present “Something”
Date(s):
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 2:00 pmLocation:
Griffin Concert Hall, University Center for the Arts, 1400 Remington St.
Price:
$8/CSU students, $18/public
Written by Michael Kennard and John Turner, directed by Karen Hines
Mump and Smoot inhabit a parallel Universe on planet Ummo, worship a god named Ummo and converse in their own gibberish language – Ummonian – which is nevertheless clear to the audience, all the while delighting in the chaos of a nightmarish world. Often compared to characters as diverse as those in Monty Python, the Three Stooges, Ren and Stimpy and Samuel Beckett, they elicit in their audience the peculiar mix of sympathy, empathy and horror that stem from watching flawed individuals alternately fail and succeed at their all-too-human schemes.
In “Something” we find the intrepid duo prancing through the etiquette of a fine café, the sorrow and despair of a wake and the pandemonium of the doctor’s office.
Mump (Kennard) is the natural leader; authoritative, pompous, bullying, scheming and manipulative, alternately erupting in towering rages and completely collapsing from terror. Smoot (Turner) is the perpetual innocent; playful, childlike, silly, bullied by Mump but occasionally standing up to him. The “horror clown” duo will turn conventional clowning on its head in this darkly humorous work that ranges from zany to macabre.
Not for children.