The Supper Club Of Lost Causes

"The Supper Club of Lost Causes" is part vaudeville and part nightmare, it's set in a faded glory supper club in Hawley, PA. Such establishments were commonly found along rural highways outside of towns, providing supper and cheap, all-night entertainment, including music and dancing. Some of them had gambling and rooms for travelers, adding to their disreputable allure. They were well past their time by the Jack Benny era, but hung on (at least, in this play) in places like Hawley, PA. Jim Farmer fills his Supper Club with hapless characters, disorienting theatrics and pastiche dialogue. The owner of the club and master of ceremonies is in love with the wife of his bandleader. The bandleader is, in turn, infatuated with the owner's protégé, a sexy Vietnamese "performance artist" who is fixated on a past lover in California. The interactions vacillate between false optimism and despair. A State Policeman arrives ("Staties" are omnipresent in Northeastern Pennsylvania) to arrest the bandleader and is killed by flying metal from an exploding laundry-mat next door. Throughout, the play satirizes both film noire and Freudian dramas. There is strong mix of surreal comedy and real tenderness.

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