ROGER B. HEARD & THE TIGHT 45: A Man with a Deadline

ROGER B. HEARD & THE TIGHT 45: Voiceover Master with a Deadline

A Theater Review by Julinda D. Lewis

At: HATTheatre, 1124 Westbriar Dr., RVA (Tuckahoe) 23238

Performances: January 11-19, 2019

Ticket Prices: $25 Adults; $20 Seniors; $15 Youth, Groups, Students & RVATA; Reservations Required – No tickets at the door

Info: (804) 343-6364 or hattheatre.org

It was interesting that two of the first shows of the new year shared a theme. On Friday night I attended 5^th Wall Theatre’s production of Talk Radio at TheatreLAB the basement, then on Saturday I attended Roger B. Heard & the Tight 45, which made its world premiere on Friday. A coproduction of Free Jambalaya and HATTheatre at HATTheatre’s west end black box theater, Roger B. Heard is a three-person production written by Alex Mayberry and directed by James Nygren.

Dale Leopold plays Roger B. Heard, a veteran voiceover actor with a great talent but, unfortunately, a small bank account. The rent is due, and he has several projects to record, but his studio time has been limited. It seems a musician by the name of Dirty Metal Lefty has reserved all but 45 minutes of the available studio time. With the help of the studio operator Betty Robb, delightfully played by Emily Turner, Roger churns out one assignment after another. A perfectionist, he doesn’t have time for mistakes or retakes. Wouldn’t you know, a picky client calls in and wants him to redo a single line in a previously recorded ad – over and over and over. In a flash of brilliance, Betty Robb suggests playing back the original version. Problem solved! Betty Robb keeps things moving with her snappy comebacks and no-nonsense demeanor, adding moments of humor and balance to Roger’s feverish personality.

Roger and Betty Robb (she is always referred to by her full name) embark on an impossibly tight schedule, hoping to complete an ambitious roster of voice overs in 45 minutes: a morning motivation; Tales of Fantastica, in which Roger voices six characters and a narrator; a chair sales pitch; a multi-lingual bait shop phone menu, in which one of the languages was a pseudo hillbilly dialect; a congressional campaign ad that seemed guaranteed not to get the candidate elected; the reading of a chapter of a celebrity memoire; a monster bass fishing tournament; TV dubs for an action movie; the voices and sound effects for a game called Dojo Crusader; and a tribute to a religious leader performed in English and Swahili. Listening to Leopold transition from voice to voice, character to character is both amusing and anxiety inducing. We know he’s on a deadline, and Betty Robb keeps us aware of the time.

The only other character is Dirty Metal Lefty, aka Doc Thomas, a musician and songwriter who fills the pre-show space and a final scene with Roger B.  Dirty Metal Lefty is billed as a Richmond musician, so that leaves unanswered the question of her British accent. And I guess I was the only one who was a little slow and didn’t realize that Dirty Metal Lefty played a left-handed guitar until she asked that Roger be given a right-handed one to join her in a song.

There is even some audience participation. For instance, I found myself assigned as a last-minute “intern” assigned to play the tambourine for Dirty Metal Lefty, and a couple sitting behind me had been assigned to participate in a call and response. Due to the threat of severe weather, there were only about 10-12 people in Saturday’s audience, and the Sunday performance was cancelled, but there are two more opportunities to see this show on January 18 and 19 at 8:00 PM.

This is one of the quirkiest shows ever, it runs under an hour with no intermission and the only pretense at a plot is Roger’s deadline. And, if he’s so good, why is he so broke?

 

Julinda D. Lewis is a dancer, teacher, and writer who was born in Brooklyn, NY and now lives in Eastern Henrico County.

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Photo Credits: photos uncredited at the time of publication