Squeeze Box: Laughs from an Unlikely Source

Ann Randolph worked her way through college by writing original comedies with schizophrenics in exchange for room and board. Do you really need any other reason to see her new solo play?

Oh.

Okay, if you're gonna be difficult about it...

Sure, almost everyone thinks the people they work with are crazy, but Ann Randolph has the doctors' notes to prove it. And if that statement strikes you as insensitive then chances are you haven't worked in a homeless shelter for the mentally ill, where affectionate humor is one of the best defenses against having your spirit broken daily.

The thought of a one-woman play based on a performer's ten years of experiences taking groups of developmentally disabled adults on road trips and leading self-esteem seminars for homeless women could easily conjure up saccharine dramatics normally associated with "a very special episode of The Facts of Life", but in Squeeze Box Randolph has better things to do than paint herself as an angel of mercy selflessly leading a humble existence because of a deep-rooted need to help others. Uh-uh. This is a play about burnout. It's about deciding it's okay to change your life around and focus on yourself for a while. And it's in Randolph's one-woman road picture of self-discovery and acceptance where we find genuine warmth and pathos.

As directed by Alan Bailey, one of Randolph's strongest assets is a knack for not seeming like an actor as she narrates her misadventures through low-paying, under-appreciated grunt work. What keeps the hour and fifteen minutes or so of running time moving so swiftly is the friendly, natural delivery of a buddy telling you a story combined with a text that never seems scripted. Since this is a solo performance in the year of 2004, she naturally plays an assortment of characters throughout the evening (Remember the days when a solo performance meant the actor played one character for the whole show?), but even then she comes off more like a friend hanging out in your apartment imitating her condescending boss or the weird guy she dated last night. A Bette Davis-ish hand gesture and a raspy slur and she's the nympho-mouthed shelter resident. A bright smile and a sing-songy voice and she's an overly sunny co-worker. An upturned, scrunched up face and she's her oddly unemotional new boyfriend whose accordion playing provides the show's title. (Yeah, yeah... there's that other meaning of the term "squeeze box" that does figure slightly in the proceedings.)

Squeeze Box's off-Broadway production is being produced by Anne Bancroft, whose husband Mel Brooks has already secured the play's film rights, and although Randolph's humor doesn't quite enter Brooksian levels of questionable taste, she did have Sunday afternoon's preview audience occasionally responding to her jokes with a "Did she just say that?" gasp. Like when a religious fanatic earnestly instructs a group of abused women to practice turning the other cheek. Or when a best friend explains the advantage of dating her colonics cleanser with "He's seen all my shit and he still likes me." Or when she says of her match.com blind date, "He looked like Jesus Christ and right away I wanted to nail him."

Squeeze Box may seem a bit formula as solo performances go, with its bare stage, collection of eccentric characters and generally hopeful conclusion. But the immensely amiable Ms. Randolph has got a slightly off-kilter sense of humor that keeps you on your toes through even the most familiar territory.

And if you're schizophrenic, see it twice. Just in case you didn't really see it the first time.

Squeeze Box plays at the Acorn Theatre through October 17th. Visit annrandolph.com

For Michael Dale's "mad adventures of a straight boy living in a gay world" visit dry2olives.com