Rating (out of four stars): ★★
I’ve seen an All Puppet Players show before, so I went into “The Exorcist Has No Legs” with the expectation of laughing until I started coughing (admittedly not a hard stunt this weekend, since my respiratory system was such a mess my voice broke every other word). I was, unfortunately, disappointed. There were plenty of laughs, but many of the jokes felt overdone. The true humor came to shine in the puppeteers’ improvisation onstage.
I’ll quickly disclaim that I reviewed All Puppet Players’ last production, “Fifty Shades of Felt,” before I devoted myself to bringing a more critical eye to downtown Phoenix theater. It’s likely that I overlooked parts of the show I might be more critical of now, so my comparison of the two reviews may be faulty. However, I stand firm with the conclusion that I enjoyed “Fifty Shades of Felt” much more thoroughly than I did “The Exorcist Has No Legs.”
Perhaps the humor comes simply from the fact that “Fifty Shades of Grey” has more fodder. I’d argue that the movie “The Exorcist” is fairly absurd and ridiculous, but it’s also grounded as one of the seminal early masterworks in the horror film genre. “Fifty Shades of Grey” is no one’s masterwork, which makes it easier to make fun of for two full hours.
“The Exorcist Has No Legs,” however, struggled consistently throughout with jokes that were dead long before they left the stage. Some of the humor dragged on painfully. The majority of the jokes were too on-the-nose for me, lacking in nuance and subtlety — they felt a bit like a ploy for cheap laughs.
The feeling in the audience seemed to reflect mine. One attendee in the front row at Saturday’s show laughed raucously through the whole show, and as a “key laugher” — a term I’ve used to indicate the few people in an audience who’ll make the rest of the audience laugh — he brought audience laughter to jokes that may not have otherwise received it. The audience’s response seemed lukewarm nonetheless.
Not all humor fell flat, though. Onstage faux pas such as a puppet’s arm falling off and Father Karras, puppeted by Shaun Michael McNamara, inadvertently calling the Bible “the church book,” coaxed out hilarious improvised reactions.
McNamara’s improv really made the show for me. Adaptor and director of “The Exorcist Has No Legs,” McNamara is really the creative genius behind All Puppet Players, and it shows in his adept improvisation. Among the cast, he seemed to have the greatest number of dropped lines and other mistakes, but his wit was also the sharpest and quickest on stage in response to those errors.
The caveat is that no comedy show should have to rely on mistakes to be funny. All Puppet Players takes the unexpected and runs with it beautifully, which is a strength of the entire company that I think could be capitalized on by adding more elements of the unexpected throughout their shows from the outset. It is unfortunate, though, that the most cough-inducing laughter for me occurred during parts that seemed like unplanned accidents.
While the humor this time around lacked subtlety, I still enjoyed the show and walked out smiling. I just wish I’d been able to walk out laughing.
“The Exorcist Has No Legs” runs through Oct. 30 at Playhouse on the Park on Central Avenue and Palm Lane. Ticket information can be found here.
Contact the columnist at molly.bilker@asu.edu
