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The Return of Blebbings by Nick Olney at Actor's Asylum From the bizarre imagination of UCSD theatre grad Nick Olney comes three one-acts of sometimes humorous, sometimes dark, always twisted alternate realities. The first, Thoroughbred & Salty, features a spontaneous amateur talent show within a hotel lobby that is, or appears to be part of, the Lair of the Eternal Maggots. This is followed by Rockheads wherein a husband, who does nothing all day but put rocks in his head, wakes to find that his wife has died and has been replaced by a replica wife robot. And lastly we find ourselves faced with a mortal case of the pesky Blebbings. The strangeness begins in the Lair of the Eternal Maggots where a librarian of sorts (Rafael Ruiz) eventually has to give up trying to shush the hotel's unruly visitors who are all jabbering in different languages including French, Spanish, German, and sea urchinese – just about every language except English. Of course, you can pretty much understand what’s going on, which only goes to demonstrate the insignificance of verbal language compared to the use of body language and cheesily amusing talent show performances. Such performances include an athletic tennis racket dance by someone who appears to be the Lair Leader (Amir Khastoo), a slow-dancing pet sea urchin (Ryan Higgins and his owner Lisa Rodriguez), a highly melodramatic monologue by Raggedy Ann (Nick Triplett), an enthusiastic if audibly painful French version of Yankee Doodle Dandy by Ashley Smashley accompanied by her two playful young daughters (Monique Fleming and Jordana Rose) who play paddy-cake with mittened hands, a ballerina-like girl (Lauren Beck) with antennae on her head who roller-skates to disco, and all climaxing with the universal language of song that gets everyone off their feet to dance and sing – except of course for the feet-less maggots (Karl Krohne and Derek Beveridge) who have to squirm and moan on their stomachs. Act Two features Amber Largent as a hard-working male Rockhead (a creature that “must put rocks in head” all day at work) who one morning wakes up to a little surprise. His wife (Amanda Sitton), or something that at least looks like his wife except for the scotch tape on her face and a red light for a heart, is plugged into a wall socket. With her jerky, mechanical movements, she explains that his real wife died during the night, and that when the Tooth Fairy saw this, it called the Corpse Fairy who made this “robotic lover” to help ease the Rockhead's transition to widowhood. But a few days of the same robotic routine with this robotic lover can drive even a man with rocks in his head absolutely crazy. Perhaps no wife at all would be better than a robotic wife… And finally we get to the terrifying Blebbings – the worst kind of pests you can imagine. The story revolves around an adult man (Ryan Higgins) who does nothing but sit in his backyard all day, reminiscing again and again about his glorious youth when he used to be a killer Nintendo player. His only audience to these ramblings being the various animals in his yard including his favorite happy, hungry tweety birds (Ashley Smashley, Jordana Rose, and Monique Fleming) that think he’s kind of strange, but at least they get fed. However, Ryan is about to learn that adult life is not all fun and games, and sometimes you have to battle real demons. Like Blebbings – creatures that can kill and make drooling zombies out of all creatures on earth. Including former Nintendo ninjas like Ryan. It’s Disney gone demented when Ryan, a couple unfortunate little boys (Nick Olney and Jim McKinley), and the talking animals of the forest do battle with the ghoulish, nightmarish Blebbings. Tom Banjo’s funky synthesizer music accompanies the entire freaky act with great effect, although no one is immune to the terror that is the Blebbings!!! The cast is made up of a bunch of great, young actors who fully and enthusiastically embrace Nick Olney’s weird creations. The costumes (Lauren Beck) were especially amusing for the various animal roles (from roller-skating bears to big-bellied, big-beaked birds to the cute little rodents to the multi-tentacled sea urchin). Danny McDermott’s lighting of the Blebbing attacks added much to the strange mixture of comedy and doom.
There could be some greater messages, some
all-important truths, that are revealed if we look deeply enough into these
peculiar tales of fun, tragedy, and horror. Perhaps the first act is a reminder
to enjoy and appreciate all the different cultures of the world – the maggots,
the sea urchins, … even the French. Through Rockheads we might realize
that we should value those who try to make us happy, even when their efforts
fail miserably, rather than stomping their hearts out because they annoyed us.
And maybe the Blebbings illustrate that if we only live within the
glories of our past, we will be “consumed” by the present. On the other hand,
maybe they are just a trio of cool, kooky stories designed to amuse us. Only Nick
Olney knows for sure. Unfortunately, before Act Three finished, Nick became
Blebbing Chow.
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