BECCA MARTIN-BROWN

bmartin@nwaonline.com

“Kyle is a good ol’ boy, with an emphasis on the ‘boy’ and sarcasm on the ‘good,’” said actor Eric Bolin. “He married Nan young and turned from crummy guy who seemed fun to lazy, abusive alcoholic. The question at the heart of his character is whether or not he is redeemable.”

The secondary question in the Lauren Gunderson dramedy, staged Aug. 16-18 by Theatre Collective of Northwest Arkansas, is whether Kyle will “Exit, Pursued by a Bear.”

“Lauren Gunderson is my favorite contemporary playwright,” said Kris Isham, co-directing the play with a Shakespearean stage direction as a title. “She writes characters that are believable and human. The dialogue crackles, and this particular script takes a serious subject and uses humor to make it approachable.”

The premise is that Nan, portrayed by Miranda Clark, has finally had enough of her abusive husband.

“Nan is a woman full of heart and spunk who married a man she thought was going to be good; he wasn’t. And her big decisions kind of stopped there… until now, that is,” Clark said.

“She’s a complicated blend of beauty and pain,” explained Clark, who most recently was Cogsworth in Arts One Presents’ “Beauty and the Beast.” “[She’s] someone who chooses to surround herself with friends who are brilliant and powerful personalities, because she aspires for that kind of courage to rub off on her.

“Life is tough, and your circumstances are your own, but the people who stand with you through it all — good, bad and bears — are what make it worth living. And a healthy dose of humor goes a long way in keeping oneself ‘sane.’”

Nan’s plan, which she hatches with her best friend Simon (Chris Hutchings) and a stripper named Sweetheart (Stephanie Whitcomb), is to stage a theatrical death for her scoundrel of a husband. Simon and Sweetheart will re-enact scenes from her unhappy marriage for Kyle, who is their prisoner, duct-taped to a chair in their mountain cabin, and then leave him surrounded by meat and honey to wait for a bear to finish him off.

Balancing the comedy with the grave topic of spousal abuse was made easier by the playwright, said co-director Amy Eversole.

“The script allows for the humor to be part of the story just as it would be in real life with real people,” she explained. “Lauren Gunderson has woven it in so that the serious subject is more easily approachable than if it were a drama about the same thing. Audiences are more likely to listen and consider than turn away because it’s ‘too tough to think about.’”

“Like circumstances in the real world sometimes, it’s very much a situation of ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry,’” Bolin said. “Realizing that some of the worst people you know in everyday life are, somewhere deep down, real humans can be hard.”

“I love a dark comedy, and this one has been extremely fun to work on,” said Whitcomb, who plays the stripper waiting for her big theatrical break. “I love Sweetheart. She is funny and sassy, and I identify with her because I am also an actor (and maybe also a little funny and sassy.) Sweetheart is a feminist like I am, and loves a good revenge plot much like myself. It was very easy for me to step into her shoes.”

“I have never fallen so hard, so fast for a script and a character,” agreed Clark. “And I mean that! It’s a perfect messy swirl of emotions topped with a laugh!

“In all honesty, I love how messy it gets, because I feel it reflects the world around us,” she added. “There are clear rights and wrongs, but the getting from one end to the other is what makes a person who they are. And living in the uncomfortable middle ground that is Nan Carter has truly been one of my favorite parts about this whole process.”

“In such a divisive time, I want people to be like Nan,” Bolin said. “I want them to exit the horror of the world and shun those who would do them harm, but not condemn their antagonists as unworthy of saving. We need more of that.”

“I always hope to leave the audience with something to talk about and maybe to broaden their perspective just a little — or a lot,” Eversole added. “A bear on your tail will do that to you.”

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FAQ

Theatre Collective:

‘Exit, Pursued by a Bear’

WHEN — 7 p.m. Aug. 16-17; 2 p.m. Aug. 18

WHERE — The Medium, 214 S. Main St. in Springdale

COST — $25-$35

INFO — theatrecollectivenwa.org