I read this play and liked it before I heard about and later saw Tracy Letts’ multiple-prize-winning August: Osage County. Now, a couple of years later, I’ve finally seen Superior Doughnuts performed. It has none of the bitterness and angst of Letts’ earlier plays; and though it lacks the ambitions and scope of Osage, it also never feels as interminable. In fact, this likable work may be a little obvious, but, as Geva’s delightful production demonstrates, the play has enough singular wit and quirky behavior to avoid feeling predictable and to charm its audiences.
Within the dark realities of a rundown Chicago uptown neighborhood, Letts works a comic and emotional medley of audience-pleasing elements. The colorful mix of ethnic types includes Arthur Przybyszewski, a widowed Polish-American aging Viet Nam dropout, who runs a failing doughnut and coffee shop across from a Starbucks; Franco, a bright young African-American who wants a job working for him; Officer Randy, a tough Irish-American female cop who likes Arthur; Officer James, her African-American partner, who attends Star Trek gatherings in costume; Max Tarasov, a rough, drunken Russian who owns the video store next door and wants to buy the donut store to expand; Lady Boyle, a frail old bag-lady who drops in for free coffee and donuts; and two gangsters who hold Franco’s gambling debts.
Most of the interplay focuses on Franco’s invigorating efforts to introduce new music, wholesome food choices and hip hop décor to enliven Arthur’s hippie dropout life and sad recollections of lost causes. And then there’s an astounding three-part, five minute fight scene in the second act that hits the audience like a fireworks display with marching-band accompaniment. Credit director Mark Cuddy and well-known fight choreographer David S. Leong with a show-stopping enactment of that challenge.
Geva’s production is all that I’d hoped for when I read this play. Jack Magaw’s wonderfully distressed set and Christina Selian’s mood-setting costumes get constant changes in emotional emphasis from Matt Reinert’s subtly complex lighting.
The whole cast is first rate. Surpassing all the good work I’ve seen him offer before, Geva Theatre Center Artist in Residence Skip Greer, who is unrecognizable with long ponytail and hair exploding all over his face, inhabits the worn-down Arthur with effortless authority. He rises to controlled passion toward the finale that is remarkable.
Dashing James Holloway, as Franco, works with him in a comic duet that becomes touching and ultimately thrilling. Daryll Heysham’s commanding Max makes a somewhat single-note character remarkably varied and amusing without ever becoming caricature. Mary Jo Mecca is ingratiating and funny as the tough cop with surprising cooking talent. And Patricia Lewis is wordlessly funny throughout as the old bag lady, but her unexpected quiet crying scene near the play’s end when the woman realizes what Arthur has lost and the extent of Franco’s injuries had half the audience crying with her.
Superior Doughnuts is perhaps sentimentally sweet, but I find it well shaped, flavorful, and a treat. I expect it to be offered in many venues.
