Ghouls and a hit man keep 'Blood Ties' from binding

Jeremy Goldstein (Steven Ruppel) lies on the couch in his apartment crying for his clingy Jewish mother, who has just expired while on a trip to Europe. "I just can't believe she's dead," he wails.

"Try harder," quips his live-in shiksa girlfriend, Allison Taylor (Megwyn Sanders).

Actually, Vera Goldstein (Fawna Jones) has become one of the undead, a vampire whose reappearance provokes most of the mischief in the enjoyable farce "Blood Ties."

Just in time for Halloween, the River City Players production continues Thursday and Friday and concludes its run Saturday at the River City Yacht Club. A show-only performance of the play will be presented at 7 p.m. Thursday. Friday and Saturday are dinner theater shows with dinner beginning at 7 p.m.

Judy Rose's dialogue is often witty, and this time the tiny River City Yacht Club stage is an advantage when people start running in and out of doorways. Director Lloyd Williams, assistant Sally Finch and stage manager Suzanne Scherer ably keep this runaway train of laughs from running off the tracks.

Jones, last seen as sexy Cherie in the company's splendid production of "Bus Stop" in 2000, completely transforms herself into the frumpily dressed, ghoulishly pale and yet conscientiously overbearing Vera. In a note-perfect New York accent, Jones tries to give us more than a caricature.

Vera asks her rattled son to drive a stake through her heart so she can give up her blood-sucking ways. He doesn't have the nerve, of course, so he hires a hit man.

Angelo, the self-proclaimed Angel of Death, has never killed anyone. He seeks the courage straight out of the bottle and instead becomes emotionally vulnerable, As Angelo, Jeff Crain steals the show. The beauty of Crain's performance is that he is never caught acting even though this reportedly is his first stage experience.

"We have unpleasant ways of making you talk," the Angel of Death warns, pulling out a harmonica.

If Jeremy is not up to having a vampire for a mother, Allison is not up to much either. She is a hand model known to visit her psychiatrist when she breaks a fingernail. When Jeremy must choose between eternal life with his mother or just plain life with his girlfriend, the choice isn't all that clear.

Sanders and Ruppel are both young veterans of the University Theatre and bring moxie to the fast-moving action.

Tony Pearson as the couple's housekeeper, Maria, and Rich Behring as Allison's psychiatrist both make fine victims.

The first act of "Blood Ties" is riotous. Trying to unravel the puzzle bogs the second act down some, and unfortunately the Angel of Death is by then a zombie.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

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