Although there are many things in Jeff Daniels' nutty 1995 comedy that could be considered vulgar, the tone of the play is so sweet-tempered and silly that probably none but the prudish would take serious offense. While poking affectionate fun at Yoopers--inhabitants of
Michigan's Upper Peninsula--and playing fast and loose with what are ludicrously passed off as Ojibwa rituals and recipes, Daniels--who also directed and starred in a 2001 independent film version--indulges most shamelessly in the type of gross-out grade-school humor that chiefly involves fluids and effluvia. Indeed things are carried to such absurd extremes--such as flatulence rating at least a nine on the Beaufort wind scale--that they attain the level of a supernatural backwoods folk legend.
This legend concerns old Albert Soady (a satisfyingly grizzled and folksy David Gallagher, framing the tall tale in approved once-upon-a-time narrative style) and his two dimwitted sons, nimrod-ish Remnar (Manny Fernandez) and his hapless brother Reuben (Kevin Taylor)--the only member of the Soady clan never yet to have bagged a buck. Events, hilariously spooky enough to qualify this as a Halloween show, center upon the eve of the first day of deer-hunting season when the Soadys receive some unexpected night visitors and visitations in the cabin of their hunting camp up the Escanaba River.
David Radford gives a deliciously nerve-wracked performance as a ranger way out of his depth; J Michael Ross is wonderfully rasty as an inarticulate and crazed woodsman known as The Jimmer; and Olivia Espinosa eventually and briefly provides some much-needed feminine relief as Reuben's Ojibwa wife Wolf Moon Dance.
Under Sean Murray's farcically precise direction, the cast hits many superb ensemble moments of choreographed visual humor. Murray's setting of the cluttered cabin, meticulously dressed with properties designed by Bonnie Durben, is rustic perfection. Shulamit Nelson's costumes excellently capture the essence of grubby sportsmen. Eric Lotze's lighting contributes hugely to the growing creepiness. And George Ye's sound design gloriously renders everything from UFOs to awe-inspiring farts.