WELCOME TO `GREATER TUNA'

All of us know some real-life versions of the characters in "Greater Tuna," a two-act comedy about life and death in the small-minded town of Tuna, Texas.

The fun starts when all those characters live in the same imaginary town.

The play opens at 7 tonight at the River City Yacht Club in the Port Cape Girardeau Restaurant. Tickets are $5 for that performance and no food or alcohol will be served.

Subsequent performances Friday, Saturday and March 1-2 will be in a dinner theater setting offering a prime rib buffet and cash bar for $16.95 per person. Dinner is at 7 p.m. followed by the show at 8:30.

"Greater Tuna," written in 1982, has fun with some of the sacred cows in the conservative corral: Moral Majority ideals, guns, and censorship .

But how "Greater Tuna" will play in conservative Cape Girardeau was not a big concern, director Chuck Ross says.

"We thought about cutting some of the stuff out but in the end we decided go for it."

Ross said a few bits of spicy language were deleted, but the tone is intact. "We figured the audiences here would be pretty flexible and see it for the entertainment it is," he said.

Ross was amazed at the people who turned up at auditions for the River City Players' new production.

"There is such a wealth of talent here," the director said. "We had 34 people audition. To pick from 34 people for a cast of eight is a dream."

"Greater Tuna" has a plot, if you want to call it one, involving a male judge who has been found dead wearing a one-piece Dale Evans swimming suit. But that's just an excuse to watch this stew of strange Americana life boil and bubble.

Ross at first planned to cast just six people in the play, whose originators pulled it off with only two people playing the 18 characters.

"We felt we should get as many people in it as we could, since this is community theater," he said.

At that, two of the actors play three roles and everyone else has two.

The River City Players are making their first appearance under their new name. Formerly the Broadway Community Theatre, the group reorganized last fall after losing its performance space.

Ross, a Jackson High School and Southeast Missouri State University graduate, has been active in the Broadway Community Players both as an actor and director for years.

His directing credits include "Barefoot in the Park" and "6 Rms Riv Vu."

The cast has spent the past month rehearsing in the basement of the Commerce Bank, and this week became accustomed to performing in the small confines of the Yacht Club stage.

When it comes to handling actors, Ross is very much a hands-off director. "I let them develop their own characters," he said. "I don't feel I should tell them what to do. They have to come up with some crazy characters."

In choosing to do "Greater Tuna" in a dinner theater format, the River City Players picked a lively work. "Dinner theater has to be kept upbeat," Ross says. "People have eaten and maybe had a few drinks.

"You have to keep a consistent pace to keep the audience from getting bored."

The audience might even expect a surprise or two.