[Woody’s [rating: 4.5]
Charlie (Nicholas Pelczar) tries to comfort his caregiver, Liz (Liz Sklar), in “The Whale.” Photo by Kevin Berne.
Charlie slowly has been committing suicide by food.
Ounce by ounce.
He’s now somewhere between 550 and 600 pounds.
Playwright Samuel D. Hunter, 33, just last month was named a $625,000 MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” fellow — in part for creating “unlikely protagonists.”
Charlie, front and center in a new drama at the Marin Theatre Company, certainly fits that category.
He’s not a character I’ll soon forget.
Yet “The Whale” also deals with a mysteriously dead lover; a woman who’s become the protagonist’s friend, nurse and enabler; a missionary seeking to relocate his faith; and a daughter Charlie abandoned when realizing he was gay.
Plus wide-ranging targets: faith, death, parenting, teaching, obesity, truth.
Hunter, of course, has a resume jammed with plotlines that are upsetting, sad and profoundly stuffed with gravitas.
Including the enigmatic, dark and edgy comedy about faith and forgiveness, “A Bright New Boise,” which was produced at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley last year.
“The Whale,” an intermission-less drama a few minutes short of two hours, is never easy to watch — even with the persistent injection of quirky humor that makes the audience laugh nervously.
But, like the many references to biblical Jonah and fictional “Moby Dick,” that’s no surprise.
The minute I walk into the theater I know what’s ahead could be bleak: The set by Michael Locher forewarns me.
A grungy, overstuffed couch rests on chipped cinder blocks. In front are king-sized food and drink containers. Piled high all around is clutter. A coat of fresh paint wouldn’t help the dingy walls.
Effectively depressing.
Yet nothing could prepare me for the powerful, spot-on performance of Nicholas Pelczar as a lumbering shut-in who’s perpetually apologizing and eating himself to death because he’s grieving for his boyfriend.
For me, it’s unquestionably the best acting job of the year.
Pelczar convinces me, in spite of his average-sized head in a gigantic fat suit, that Charlie’s insatiable appetite is authentic.
How?
By obsessively wolfing down mounds of Kentucky Fried Chicken and chunks of a Subway foot-long while slurping an oversized soda.
Wheezing with every other word.
While struggling to get up so he can shuffle to the bathroom clinging to his walker.
Pelczar makes me believe, too, in Charlie’s rigidity (“I don’t go to hospitals”) even as his blood pressure climbs to a sky-high 238 over 134 and he’s plagued with heart problems and endless other ailments.
He also persuades me to accept the character’s divided persona: an emotional devastation coupled with shameless optimism.
The supporting cast also dazzles.
A 17-year-old novice actor, Christina Oeschger, adroitly captures Charlie’s antisocial, estranged daughter, Ellie, who’s failing her classes and busily posting a “hate blog.”
She spits out her misery: “Just being around you is disgusting,” she tells the dad she hasn’t seen since she was two, a man who’s bribed her to visit.
And in a chorus of pain, Adam Magill aptly flounders as Elder Thomas as Charlie’s caregiver becomes almost too intense to watch because of Liz Sklar’s performance skills.
Michelle Maxson isn’t on stage much as Mary, Charlie’s ex, but when she is, her acting chops are quickly visible.
Jasson Minadakis, the company’s artistic director for nine years, is once again at the helm. His work on this touching play, which ran off-Broadway in 2012, shows how impressively he’s matured.
Try as he may, however, he can’t keep the audience — before it feels compassion — from wincing collectively at the seemingly grotesque main character.
On the other hand, the climax of “The Whale” is so potent the opening night crowd, totally stunned, didn’t applaud for several seconds.
A thunderous tumult then rocked the place.
“The Whale” plays at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through Oct. 26. Performances Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Sundays, 1 or 2 p.m. Tickets: $10 to $58, subject to change. Information: (415) 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.
