Moose on the Loose: A Tundra of Fun
For everyone except Indigenous people, there’s an “old country.” And the generational differences of an Italian family who started from Calabria and settled in an icy Canadian village make for delightful disagreements in Dina Morrone’s comedy Moose on the Loose. The eponymous character (James Lemire), with antlers outrageously out to there, while drawing the attention of North Ontario denizens, comments on the displacement of the family in question. Patriarch Giuseppe (Stuart W. Howard) gets arrested for confronting the Moose with a gun and his wife Maria (Constance Mellors) wonders where in winter wonderland he is, while a family reunion is unfolding with their three kids, in-laws, grandparents and a Native American girlfriend knocking heads over the traditional versus the modern.
Morrone may get hearty laughs from characters like aged granny Pina (Laura James), whose dour disposition and fear of ritual beliefs like the “evil eye” (malocchio) is a wonderful source of levity. But the playwright also respects the elders enough to inevitably have them talk about leaving behind the familiarity of southern Italy for the opportunity to have their hard work transform them into property owners.
Director Peter Flood does grand work with the dozen characters that populate this piece. He carefully calibrates the comedy, not only with Canadian and Italian accents and choral movement, as when the entire family is welded together in a small police station, waiting for Giuseppe’s release. And he and Morrone escape the pitfalls of “aw, gee” conclusions, as Howard movingly asks his assembled family to remember the ways of that old country that spawned this clan, even if modern morality makes their past seem quaint, or even absurd. Morrone’s gentle, ending grace note is of the Moose, as played by a charming Lemire, who finally reminds the audience that the Moose is not the interloper in those cold environs. It’s the odd though endearing immigrants who have made it their permanent home.
Moose on the Loose at Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. W., Los Angeles. Fri-Sat at 8. Sun at 2 through May 21.
