Cast shines in WBTT’s first comedy, ‘Dearly Departed’

Officials from Sarasota’s Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe say “Dearly Departed,” is the company’s first-ever non-musical comedy.

It’s a wacky and amusing little play, and the WBTT cast is superb. But you kind of have to wonder why the company chose this slightly-above average play, out of all the funny plays ever written, for its first foray into comedy.

Maybe the reasons have more to do with the popularity of the play. It’s written by David Bottrell (whom you may know for playing Lincoln Meyer on the TV series “Boston Legal”) and Jesse Jones of the playwriting team Jones Hope Wooten, who are known for populist comedies with such titles as “ ’Til Beth Do Us Part” and “Farce of Nature,” and the original version revolves around a caucasian Bible Belt family. Bottrell and Jones later adapted it for a an African-American cast, and it became a movie titled “Kingdom Come” that starred Jada Pinkett Smith and LL Cool J. The play is popular with community theaters around the country and the movie has a cult following.

In the play’s first scene, the patriarch of a family drops dead. The rest of the thinly plotted play has to do with the extended family’s reactions to his death (few of them liked the old man very much, and his own wife liked him least of all) and the preparations for the funeral.

It’s more of a colorful character study than a narrative, with the characters including the departed man’s adult sons (one of whom sinks all his savings into a machine that cleans parking lots, thinking it will make him rich), the sons’ wives (one of whom longs to have children but has a series of miscarriages) and other tangential characters, including a hypocritical preacher and Bible-thumping woman who is sure that everyone but she is doomed to spend eternity in hell.

It’s consistently amusing but seldom hilarious. In fact, even though it’s a comedy, its best moments come in the heartfelt emotional scenes.

It’s also pretty standard stuff that you’ve seen a lot of times before. What lifts it above the rank-and-file comedy of this type is that Bottrell and Jones have taken stereotypical characters and developed them so that they’re no mere stereotypes. They’re backwoods, low-brow people, for the most part, but the playwrights never have us laughing at them.

The structure of the play, with the actors singing traditional gospel songs between scenes, also adds a distinctive touch.

The production itself, directed by Harry Bryce, could hardly be better. The 13-person cast is impeccable, with performances that are both amiable and powerful from WBTT veterans Earley Dean, Ashley D. Brooks and Dametria “Dee” Selmore, and company newcomers Cindy De La Cruz and Ian Fermy. Kourtney Page has a two roles, and she’s especially magnetic in an almost-mute role as Delightful, a young girl who eats constantly. (This review is based on performance in which understudy Ariel Blue took the role of Marguerite. She did great work, but the role is usually played by WBTT artistic director Nate Jacobs, who obviously plays the role in drag.)

The design work, with scenery by Michael Newton-Brown, costumes by Cristy Owen and lighting by Michael Pasquini is on a par with the very high level of the performances.

Even though the material they had to work with was only a notch or two above average, the cast and designers of WBTT turn “Dearly Departed” into exceptionally enjoyable evening of theater. Still, you can’t help wondering what kind of evening they could have done if they had chosen an exceptional play for their first comedy.

Details: April 19-May 27, Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, 1646 10th Way, Sarasota. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. $39.50 adult, $22.50 student and active military. 941-366-1505, westcoastblacktheatre.org.

This story was originally published May 3, 2017 at 4:23 PM with the headline "Cast shines in WBTT’s first comedy, ‘Dearly Departed’."