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the dead guy
Hippodrome Theatre Review
by dick kerekes dickkerekes@yahoo.com
Do you watch reality TV? If you do, you
will want to consider a trip to Gainesville’s Hippodrome
Theatre to see their first play of 2008,
The Dead Guy. The show runs through February
3 at 23 SE 2 nd Place in the downtown area.
If you were offered one million dollars to
allow a TV camera man to follow you around
and film you for 24 hours a day to create a show
about your life, would you do it? Oh, there is a
catch. At the end of the week you have to agree
to DIE in the manner selected by the viewing
audience.
The lead character, Eldon Phelps of Leadville,
Colorado, can’t keep a job, a woman, an
apartment and has no skills. He is approached
by a reality TV producer with this offer. She has
selected him carefully, she needs a real LOSER.
He accepts and signs a contract to accept the
money and to die.
He gets his money, buys three red trucks
for his mother, ex-girl friend
and his brother and begins
his week of temporary
wealth and pleasure. He
takes two prostitutes to
Disneyland in California for
a day of drinking and fun.
Mid week he has second
thoughts and decides if he
becomes a good guy and
does charitable things,
maybe the audience will like
him and choose to let him
live. That is enough of the
plot and I leave the dramatic
and surprise ending for you
to discover.
This is as play you are not apt to see anytime
soon at your local community theatre. It
is very technically demanding and requires five
television screens and the ability to show what is
being filmed as it happens. You are sitting there
watching the play and seeing the action on the
screens, just as the home audiences are watching.
The audience votes nightly on his manner of
death, with the grand totals to be posted at the
final show on Sunday night when Eldon will die.
Will it be A) a quiet death, B) run over by a bus,
C) shot by a gun with a venom coated bullet, or
D) cut up by a chain saw? Viewers also have E)
make your own suggestion.
Tim Altmeyer is brilliant as Eldon. You will
initially dislike this example of poor white trash,
but he grows on you as he cleans up his act.
You may even find yourself liking him and wishing
you had a vote on his fate.
Jessica Ires Morris smartly and
believably plays the TV producer,
Gina Yaweth. Yaweth is also a
Hebrew word for God, and she is
playing a God of sorts.
The show is basically done
on a bare stage with furniture that
is moved to portray the different
scene locations. As an audience
member, I was mesmerized going
back and forth from the screens
to the action stage. The two act,
almost two hour show is very
fast paced under the direction of
Lauren Caldwell. It is has humor
and interesting characters. It is a
spoof of reality TV. It is the ultimate reality show,
since death is final. It is also thought-provoking
since television brings everything right into our
living rooms with large screens and high definition
clarity. War, sex, and food never seemed so
real.
I hope your New Year’s resolution was to
expand your theatre experience and you will take
advantage of the excellent work that the Hippodrome
continues to bring to the North Florida
area, and it is only 75 miles away. For reservations
call (352) 375-HIPP or visit thehipp.org.
eujacksonville.com | january 17-23, 2008 29