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‘The Doyle & Debbie Show” at the Long Center
“Greater Tuna” star Joe Sears vows it’s the funniest show he’s seen in years.
Jenny Littleton, Bruce Arntson
The taxonomic relationship between Nashville-birthed “The Doyle & Debbie Show,” now at the Long Center, and the Austin-generated “Tuna” series would be obvious to even the untrained eye.
Stan Haas, Joan Plaster
Both weave together sketches about a part of culture rarely satirized effectively on the stage. Love of country music and country life keep the sharply outlined characterizations from darkening into the blackest of humors.
Jaston Williams, Sharon Chapman
D&D is more focused: Only two main characters, one sideman. Doyle is a high-energy country performer of the old school who experienced a mysterious breakdown and has just returned to Nashville with Debbie, his third partner by that stage name, a young mother of three from deepest Tennessee who, despite low self-esteem, brings to the stage a startling talent.
Kathy Hemphill, Farley Hemphill
Both D&D and Tuna depend on the patience of the writers and performers to build scenes from low-drama ignitions. D&D, in fact, takes it very slow, the better to guarantee that the unpredictable climax is literally hair-raising. (A wig is involved. That’s all I’ll say.)
The late Saturday matinee audience lapped it up. We heard from Long Center managing director Paul Beutel that a possible Chicago D&D engagement is in the offing (Austin is only its second city and the Long Center its first theatrical engagement).
Steve Gould, Monica Gould
We also bumped into Sears’ onstage partner, Jaston Williams, in the lobby. He was seeing the show for a second time, in itself an endorsement. Williams has just renovated a mid-century modern house in Lockhart and is working with Sears on script polishes of the third and fourth installments of the “Tuna” quartet.
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