REVIEW: ‘We Won’t Pay’: ‘Honeymooners’ with a Twist

By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Falls Church Times Staff

Seems like only yesterday that on our walks around the block my wife and I would pass the rundown duckpin bowling alley on Maple Avenue, feeling like we had been transported back to the 1950s. Then we heard it was all to be converted to a swanky high-rise condo and office building with bustling shops on the ground floor. There would even be an “art space,” gifted by the developer as one of the proffers in exchange for being allowed to build residential units on the largest remaining available commercial tract in the City.

And, as the years rolled by more quickly than we could imagine, it all happened – even if not exactly as envisioned. The office building sprang up first, then the condos. When they did not sell, they became apartments. And the bustling ground-floor shops? Still empty storefronts. That leaves the subsidized “art space.” From the grit and determination of a few extremely dedicated supporters, an arts venue has emerged right here in River City under the auspices of a group called Creative Cauldron.

I wondered how they could possibly pull it off. As supplied by the developer, the space was bare walls and a concrete floor. I stopped by last summer to hear local performers Andrew Acosta, Pete Behr, and others jam with guitars and banjo. It was stark – some paintings exhibited for sale and a few folding chairs, nothing more.

So on Friday night, the day before Halloween, I was pretty impressed to see how much has been done with so little money. Most important are the stage lights – a donation from Virginia Power. Comfortable chairs for maybe 50 people were set out in VERY close proximity to the stage set – all on the cement floor. When the play began (“We Won’t Pay, We Won’t Pay,” by Dario Fo) soon I was no longer in the barebones ground floor of Pearson Square, I was in Italy – or perhaps Little Italy in Brooklyn or East Boston.

Friday night was historic because it was ArtSpace’s first professional stage production for adults. The very first production, “The King of Pizza” in September, was very well received. Both that play and this one have professional troupes, which distinguish them from the Little Theater performances one can enjoy right down Annandale Road at the fully equipped James Lee Theater in Fairfax County.

I’ve always liked Little Theater, and feel that a community with residents that can work by day and act by night is much the richer for it. Our little City has no such animal, although I’m sure we have a number of talented actors who participate in nearby productions.

But much as I like amateur productions, I would admit that some kinds of theater can exceed the capabilities of the actors. One of the more demanding genre perhaps is farce. Let it drag, and it’s dead. “We Won’t Pay” is farce through and through, and as directed by Patrick Torres, the professional actors from the Hub Theater in Reston are adept at keeping the pace fast, as it has to be. If you enjoy the old TV series “The Honeymooners,” – or even “The Flintstones,” you’ll split your sides laughing at “We Won’t Pay.” Michael Kramer plays Giovanni, an Italian version of Ralph Kramden/Fred Flintstone, with sidekick James Gagne as Luigi (Norton/Barney). Helen Pafumi is Antonia (a lot of Alice/Wilma, but stronger, more like Lucy), while Kristen Egermeier as Margherita is a ringer for Ethel, with suggestions of Thelma Norton/Betty Rubble. Providing the foil is police sergeant/state trooper/undertaker/elderly father John Slone, who most reminds of a bumbling cop in a Laurel and Hardy short.

But don’t go to “We Won’t Pay” expecting only fun and games. That’s just the package Italian playwright and Nobel laureate Dario Fo employed in this 1974 brutal take on modern society, where the working class get mired ever deeper in debt until they find their utilities disconnected and, ultimately, their furniture out on the street. Thirty-five years later the theme endures.

Why spend an evening in the little makeshift theater at Pearson Square rather than go to the District, or even James Lee? In a word: intimacy. You are right there, on stage with the actors. Several times they interact with the audience, and “Giovanni” even handed me a sack of stolen groceries to hide under my chair. Forget the promises of future 3-D holographic television – you can experience the same thing, now, at ArtSpace. Why make yet another commute to D.C. when ArtSpace is practically at your doorstep, and with plenty of free parking? (So they say – we walked.)

Can ArtSpace pull this off? Too soon to say, of course. On opening night there was a respectable crowd, but I was surprised not to recognize a single person. Many seemed to be friends and supporters of The Hub Theater, out of Reston. The production continues through Nov. 22, with performances on Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets are $15/20 – or  just say “We Won’t Pay, We Won’t Pay.”

ArtSpace Falls Church — 410 South Maple Ave. Free parking in the adjacent parking lot as well as the parking garage at 400 South Maple.