If you ever thought you made an impossible request of someone in customer service, think again.
“Craving for Travel,” the amusing comedy playing at Little Lake Theatre Company in North Strabane, Washington County, puts clients’ most dubious demands in the hands of two rival travel agents vying for a top industry honor. This is the second play the company has produced in their theater in the round space since the pandemic. The show opened Thursday and runs through July 11.
Gary of Bolton Travel (Kevin Bass) and Joanne of Jetaway Getaways (Misty Challingsworth) each seek the Global Prize, which means having to please selfie-snapping heiresses, clueless vacationers, relentless foreign tourism board reps and even Patti Lupone.
The gimmick of this production is that Bass and Challingsworth play not only Gary and Joanne, but also a dozen kooky customers, each with different voices and mannerisms. The show, directed by Joe Eberle, has the two actors changing costume every few minutes with a musical cue playing overhead.
Challingsworth shines as a blasé mother of quintuplets, a honeymooning bride feeling smothered by her doting groom and a sweet old woman trying to recapture a long-ago memory with her husband.
Bass delivers big laughs as a distinctly un-PC American senator caught denigrating “The Crocodile Hunter” during a trip to Australia, a woman hysterically clamoring for a passport so her dog can visit France, and another travel agent who gloats over booking distant relatives of the Kardashians.
Some characters trade on caricature and stereotyping. Challingsworth plays three characters of color, including a Jamaican man trying to drum up business for his water attraction and an Arabian sheik. “Craving for Travel” may be a farce, but it’s hard to find these moments tasteful.
Some of its barbs about the travel industry hit the target, including a book-smart intern named Trip who desperately relies on his Cornell University hospitality degree when a tour group member in Florida falls ill. Or when a fictional airline attempts to reassure in robotic recordings that there are millions ahead of Joanne.
Others seem needlessly cruel, like when Joanne repeatedly ignores the frantic calls of a customer who has made a grave mistake booking a trip to China on Travelocity. Wouldn’t she want the business? It seems unbelievable given the hoops she jumps through for every other caller.
Neither Gary nor Joanne get more likeable as the show wears on. Joanne inexplicably channels Scarlett O’Hara when certain calls get her hot and bothered. Gary lets his mother manipulate him. And they both laugh at the expense of a quadriplegic competitor. Did I mention they are divorced from each other?
Several of the vignettes seem half-baked. As in most farces, writers Greg Edwards and Andy Sandberg go to improbable lengths to solve these silly situations. Some are fun and others simply go nowhere just to tell a groaner.
The limited costumes — hats, wigs, sunglasses and jackets — work surprisingly well. And the changes are never more than a couple minutes long. Still, it’s a break in the action. Seeing what character is coming next does prime the audience in a sort of joke wind-up that off-stage costume changes wouldn’t deliver.
Given such logistics and the issues with ethnic stereotyping played for laughs, perhaps the production could have been improved by two other actors, including one of color, ready to launch into the next scene. But that might take away from the feat that Bass and Challingsworth admirably tackle.
Overall, the show mines humor from the eccentricities and coincidences of an industry based on serving folks with money to spend on lavish vacations. It’s too bad the main characters of “Craving for Travel” offer little to root for. The customers may make Gary and Joanne’s lives miserable but they’re often the funniest parts of the show.
“Craving for Travel” continues through July 11, with shows at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays. Tickets are $22 each, $16 for those under 16 and $19 for groups of 20 or more at littlelake.org.
Tyler Dague: rdague@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1569 and on Twitter @rtdague.
First Published: July 2, 2021, 6:41 p.m.