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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > October > 24 > Entry
Review: ‘Hunter Gatherers’
Imagine your ideal dinner party. Good food, old friends, a little too much wine. Got the picture?
Now throw that idea out the window and get ready for a completely different kind of dinner party, one that begins with an animal sacrifice and ends with blood (and other bodily fluids) all over the floor. This nightmarish scenario is at the heart of Capital T Theatre’s production of “Hunter Gatherers,” written by up-and-coming San Francisco-based playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and directed by Mark Pickell.
When Pam (Rebecca Robinson), a nervous and quirky thirty-something comes home one evening, she finds her husband Richard (Kenneth Wayne Bradley) hovering over a bleating lamb. The butcher, he explains, didn’t have enough fresh lamb for the swanky dinner party they are hosting with their best friends from high school, Wendy and Tom, so Richard thought he’d try slaughtering a lamb himself.
The moment when Pam and Richard decide to kill their own food sets off a chain of events that have these sophisticated city-dwellers devolving into their most primal, outrageous selves. Wendy (Liz Fisher) is aggravated by her nerdy husband Tom (Brad Price) and is drawn instead to the alpha-male masculinity of Richard.
As the evening wears on, Wendy becomes obsessed with the idea of having a baby with Richard, while Richard becomes increasingly like a cave man. Pam and Tom come up with a plan to get revenge on their cheating spouses, a plan that goes quickly, horribly, wrong.
Oh, did I mention that “Hunter Gatherers” is a comedy? Like many of Capital T’s productions, it’s a dark comedy, and there are plenty of seriously cringe-inducing moments here. Trust me, “Hunter Gatherers” is not for the faint of heart.
Though none of the characters are particularly likeable, the actors play their roles to the hilt, delighting in the opportunity to get progressively wilder as the night goes on. While all of them have an excellent sense of comedic timing, Brad Price stands out as the neurotic and understated Tom.
Capital T’s production of “Hunter Gatherers” is fast-paced, aggressive, and yes, often very funny. It seems to suggest that our basest, most ugly selves are lurking not very far under the surface of our civilized veneers. But it might make you think twice before serving lamb at your next dinner party.
“Hunter Gatherers” continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Nov. 6 at Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd Street. Tickets $15-$25. www.capitalT.org
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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