Tragicomic 'The Melville Boys' Kicks Off TWS' 83rd Season

Two mismatched brothers go on a fishing trip. One is dying.

It’s not the set-up to a morbid joke, but it does produce plenty of laughs in Norm Foster’s The Melville Boys, a tragicomic play opening the 83^rd season over the next two weekends.

The titular “boys” are Lee and Owen Melville; the latter is an impetuous, irresponsible goofball, while his elder brother is a somber family man faced with a malignant cancer diagnosis and a year to live.

Into their trip appears a matching oddball pair of sisters: the older, grounded Mary, and the flirtatious Loretta, with whom Owen is instantly smitten. Dragged into his brother’s inane pursuit of Loretta, Lee, to his surprise, begins to find a kindred spirit in Mary.

All this is played for some outrageous, farcical giggles (the best involving a very bad cake), and more than a few visual gags (keep an eye on the Miller Lite), but with a serious undertone of reflection on life and responsibility.

“I said in my write-up for the program, ‘laugh at what’s funny, cry at what’s sad.’ It runs the gamut of emotions,” said Cal Turner, a member of the Theatre since 1975, who is directing his second Mainstage show. He previously helmed The Enchanted April  three years ago.

“You read it the first time, and you think it’s a very straightforward, simple show, but it’s not. The more you dig into it, the more you find.”

In what is either a remarkable coincidence or casting’s idea of an extra joke, the brothers are played by men with nearly brotherly last names: Jim Kopp (Owen) and Rich Kropp (Lee).

Kropp—note the R—of Glen Ellyn, said that playing a dying man desperately concerned for his family’s security was deeply personal. “I have young kids, too,” he noted. “I think it’s the closest to home of any [role] I’ve ever played. It’s a guy who’s in terror of leaving his kids behind—there’s nothing worse.

“Everything that I do in the show is played through the prism of somebody who’s dying and knows he’s going to die,” he added. “It fuels every sentence.”

The cabin staging is gorgeously detailed, even as Turner and the set crew faced the challenges of making a show on a semi-thrust stage work for every seat in the house. And with a cast of only four for a Mainstage show (still more than last season’s debut!), extra devotion has been required by each cast member.

But the group dynamics have become well-greased. Jennifer Torchia, who plays the self-centered Loretta (Eileen Duban is Mary), said the cast has been seamlessly working through any hitches in dress rehearsals.

“We had a special effect go off perfectly for the first time, and we were all so shocked by it that it threw us off a little bit!” she said. “But knowing our characters and the story so well, we were able to cover it. If a line was dropped, somebody else picked it up.”

The show launches TWS’ 83^rd consecutive season, which managing director Bill Hammack dubbed “the year of the playwright.” The season features plays from luminaries like Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H), Nobel laureate Eugene O’Neill (his only comedy, Ah, Wilderness!) and legendary comedian Steve Martin.

“It’s really a mixed up season that’s got something for everybody, with playwrights who are really accomplished at what they do,” said Hammack.

The Melville Boys runs at the on September 8th-10th and 15th-17th at 8:00 p.m., September 11th, 17th & 18th at 2:30 p.m. and September 11th at 7:30 p.m.