Kaelen Wilson-Goldie     Dysfunctional Drama So you settle in, turn on the tv, and play the clicker for all its worth. You flip past the duplicated public access stations, wade through the layers of home-shopping, weather, religious zealotry, and pause on the familiar face, the recognizable situation. Perhaps this ritual has become so routine that you begin to sense time and channel. In your perusal of the average sitcom, you become attached to the characters, invested in their weekly experiences. The connection is quick and easy. And it is the sort evoked by the Drama Department's latest production at the Helms, "Escape from Happiness." Six scenes of comedic family drama fire like episodes one after the other. Besides the commercial jingles and shiny products, all that's missing is that cozy, hazy distance between your couch and the tube. As always, the intimate space of the Helms Theater brings the audience to the brink of the performance. And in this case, the crowd becomes the mystical studio audience, the life behind the mechanical laugh-tracks. Appropriately set in a slightly run-down kitchen, "Escape from Happiness" follows the escapades of a dysfunctional family living in working-class Toronto. The play hinges on the vibrancy of the larger than life, archetypical characters, each with enough dramatic flamboyance and substance to back them up. Nora (Kay Ferguson Bechtel) is the eccentric matriarch who has a flair for expressing neurosis and lunacy with her sweeping hand gestures. Tom (John Paul Schneidler) is the recently returned absentee father feigning debilitating illness. As the youngest daughter, Gail (Karen Faust) is the headstrong and practical young mother who keeps the plot on track. Mary Anne (Robbie Berry), the characteristically crazy middle sister, combines Tony Kushner's Harper with Saturday Night Live's Mary Katherine Gallagher. Berry churns out the play's most consistently hysterical and engaging performance as a perplexed and bizarre young woman "at a crossroads." Elizabeth (Sarah Dandridge) is the eldest daughter, an over-worked lawyer who literally explodes with energy as the play progresses. Capping off the household are Junior, Gail's young,dumb, and loyal husband and the rather amorphous presence of their infant. Playing off the family drama is the foil of cops Dian Black and Mike Dixon, the ill-matched partners, and crooks Stevie and Rolly, the ill-fated father-son team. Written by Canadian playwright George F. Walker, "Escape from Happiness" presents several potential stories to follow and issues to explore, as any good sitcom should. Opening with the sight of Junior's bloody and bruised body splayed across the kitchen floor, "Escape from Happiness" focuses on the crusade to find his assailants and determine their motivation. As the plot twists and turns, the characters race the clock to clear Nora's name of criminal implication. Along the way, crime, corruption, a fair share of hilarious psycho-babble, and some unresolved "issues" trip everyone up. The manic performance demands not only exquisite comedic timing but exhaustive physical exertion as well. For the most part, the actors do not miss a beat in the exchange of one- liners and frantic diatribes. The sheer physicality of their performance climaxes perfectly as Gail and Mary Anne wrestle Elizabeth to the floor, pulling her body flat as Nora swoops down to give her an absolutely absurd zerbert to the stomach. Lest you fear the boredom of a season's worth of episodes condensed into a night's performance, "Escape from Happiness" coheres as a singular work. The more serious dramatic moments are sufficiently streamlined, allowing the actors both time and space to exagerrate and amplify the hysterical comedy. This gives the narrative arc enough momentum to carry through the six scenes. The various plot lines are developed enough to keep suspenses tight and expectations raised. In the program, the director credits "Escape from Happiness" as an emblem of the drama department's international flavor this season. Indeed, the latest production pokes and probes at issues of marginality, patriarchal authority, feminine power, and authoritative modes of social control. But at the risk of perpetuation, these issues are buried sufficiently deep beneath the surface. As the lights illuminate the stage one last time to catch the cast in a serious and restrained bow, music suddenly rushes out to shatter the moment. As each actor breaks into his or her own little jig down and off the stage, the lasting impression is not the prevalence of social ills, but rather of the exuberance of last laughs. And unlike the eerie and repetitive echo of generated laugh-tracks, these laughs are real.

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