Stage Review - Wrong Turn at Lungfish (Olympic Theatre Arts)

Stage Review - Wrong Turn at Lungfish
Presented By: Olympic Theatre Arts - Sequim, WA
Show Run: April 25 - May 11, 2025
Date Reviewed: Sunday, April 27, 2025 (Opening Weekend)
Run Time: 2 Hours (including a 15 minute intermission)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman

Garry Marshall, screenwriter, actor, director, and producer. With a career that spanned 57 years prior to his death , there’s probably nobody reading who hasn’t been impacted in some way by the work of this talented man. Marshall’s resume is full, from writing for late night television in his early days, then on shows like Happy Days, later directing feature films, such as Pretty Woman, to acting, as he did in many films, including his sister Penny’s A League of Their Own. His voice was distinguishable, as was his sensibility, being part of a generation of writers and directors whose humor was edgy and layered with a more progressive voice, a generation that includes the likes of the late Norman Lear and the legendary Mel Brooks. What isn’t typically included in conversations about Marshall’s legacy, though, is his experience as a playwright. Given that he was part of the duo that adopted Neil Simon’s play The Odd Couple for television, it shouldn’t be surprising that when he did turn his hand at theatre, what he produced would be as good as his other work, that it would contain the same brand of humor and the same layered storytelling. His most popular work in theatre, co-written with Lowell Ganz, is 1990’s Wrong Turn at Lungfish, which is currently running on stage at Olympic Theatre Arts in Sequim through May 11. I have to admit that before seeing this on the calendar, and doing my pre-show research, I had no idea Garry Marshall had any theatre credits to his name, but after just a few minutes into the play, it became clear to me that Wrong turn at Lungfish has Garry Marshall’s fingerprints all over it. The story of a blind and bitter terminally ill patient, an ex-college dean who is want to wax philosophical, and who is assigned a perky and streetwise woman to read for him in the hospital is funny, thought provoking, and poignant. The OTA production is directed by Marissa Meek and features Vince Campbell as Dean Peter Ravenswaal, the aforementioned grumpy old patient, and Gabrielle Simonson as Anita Marendino, the reader, a pair that turn out to be exactly what the other needs, at the exact time they’re needed. From conversations about death and dying, religion and evolution, and even Anita’s relationship with her questionable boyfriend Dominic, the two cover the gamut, Anita hoping to bring some comfort to Peter in his last days of his life and Peter some much needed advice before it’s too late in her’s.

The first interesting thing about this production is where Olympic Theatre Arts is presenting it, not in their Main Stage space, but in their Gathering Hall, which for someone like me who only began seeing shows at this Sequim theatre in December, is a first. Heretofore, the space has been just for relaxing before shows and during intermission with popcorn or a drink, but for “Lungfish”, the stage area in the front of the hall is setup to resemble a hospital room, and even though the script indicates the story takes place in modern day, everything about the design, including the set and costumes, both designed by director Marissa Meek, resemble something closer to what you’d see around the time the play was written and produced in the early 1990s. The set is fairly straightforward, as far as what is on it, a hospital bed, side tables, chairs, all the things that fit in the motif of a hospital room, but there’s also the things on the wall, the way the set is accessorized, with message boards, and schedules on white boards, again all of the things that you’d see in a hospital, but a level of detail Marissa made sure to include in her design. She’s also done a nice job with the layout, and how it meets the needs of the storytelling, even using the aisles of the Gathering Hall, between the tables where the audience sits, as an extension of the set, representing the hallway at the end of which is where Peter’s room is. But on the stage itself, in addition to what is the room and Peter’s hospital bed, beyond the room’s door is the nurse’s station and beyond that an entrance way to what is implied to be other areas in the hospital, just as a similar area in Peter’s room is implied to be a hallway leading to a window, both of these areas key to the storytelling and all designed well to work with the movement Marissa has designed in the play. Other design elements are subtle, including Rebecca Orozco’s light and sound design, with the exception of her lighting toward the end of the show, and the way she illuminates the hospital room where Peter is staying. It’s a hard scene, and one that is made truly magical by Rebecca’s use of light.

Dean Peter Ravenswaal is a character right out of a 1970s sitcom, Archie Bunker comes to mind, he’s grumpy, bitter, short-tempered and full of insults. As with Archie and other characters of that era, or others that Garry Marshall has designed, this off putting personality is used as a vehicle to deliver a deeper message. Vince Campbell is picture perfect in this role, between his frustrated expressions, the way he rubs his forehead when he’s run out of patience with someone, or the way he delivers a one-liner, he’s funny, but funny with an edge. He presents the character with the right amount of intelligence, arrogantly so at first, and then as he understands his fate, his terminal disease of which his blindness is only the first of many symptoms to come, he brings more humility to Peter, enough so that he begins to explore and question other opinions about life, death, and what comes after. At first, most of his insults are hurled at Blanche, his nurse, a student nurse, who is already frazzled in her work and would be willing to just leave Peter to his own devices, if she weren’t the only caregiver willing to tend to him. Marilyn Snook is Blanche, and while she is a bit older than what one might expect when they see “student nurse” in the program, I’m perfectly fine with that, in fact it’s nice to see someone older in this role showing that you’re never too old to be a student. Blanche, in her own frustration, is written to be a source of comic relief in pretty much every scene she’s in, but the way Marilyn plays her is perhaps a bit too over the top. There’s a tad too much facing the audience when delivering a punchline, like she’s performing for the audience or delivering a line in order to get a reaction. Rather, if the lines are delivered to the other actors, the humor in them would come more naturally.

Blanche gets some relief, though, when Anita Marendino arrives, a volunteer who has been assigned to read for Peter. Anita can be described as someone who is much smarter than she gives herself credit for, she’s got a good heart, and she’s genuinely interested in helping Peter. She explains to Peter, when asked why she enjoys reading to patients, that, when she was younger, she had a grandmother who was blind and when she started to read to her Anita saw the impact her reading had. Anita comes across as not so intelligent, of course, but largely due to her low self-esteem, much of that a result of her treatment by fiancé Dominic. Peter seems to be able to perceive much of this through their conversations, which vary from the shallow to the deep. Once Peter realizes that Anita is Catholic, he begins quizzing her about death, dying, God, and Heaven. Anita’s answers, to Peter, seem easy, and the conversation clearly annoys him, but what he calls easy, she calls hope, and what’s impressive about Anita is how she accepts his challenges, and gives just about as good as she gets. As Anita, Gabrielle is also very good. She’s like Marisa Tomei’s character in My Cousin Vinny, but smoother, with less of an edge. Wrong Turn at Lungfish is as good as the two actors playing Peter and Anita are together, and this pair build their characters’ relationship from nothing to something with a genuine love at its heart. As they get to know each other, Peter opens up more and more, still gruff, still insulting, but in less of a personal way. His goal, before he dies, is to understand his own existence. In a sort-of follow-up conversation to the death and afterlife discussion, they turn to evolution, and Peter asks why we were given a brain so complex, if, by evolutionary law, we only needed to be just a hair better than apes, was it an evolutionary mistake, a “wrong turn at lungfish”? These are some pretty deep discussions that they have, but at the same time, Dominic comes up quite a bit, how he treats Anita, what he does for a living, and where he is, which eventually leads to Peter getting more involved in their relationship than he probably wanted to be. Mario Arruda rounds out the cast as Dominic De Cesar, and when Peter, and the audience, first meets him, he comes across as a bumbling, small time gangster, and his first conversation with Peter is, for me, the funniest scene of the play. But as funny as Dominic is at first, Mario soon shows some versatility when his character’s more, not so nice side comes out. It’s an impressive piece of acting in a supporting role, and especially in Act 2, his Dominic is crucial to the overall story arc.

As I mentioned previously, Garry Marshall’s characters, especially the ones with the irredeemable personalities, are often used as a tool, or a vehicle for his messaging. Here, it’s the interaction between Dominic and Peter that provides that final piece in the “Lungfish” puzzle. There are lessons to be learned here, about how violence begets violence, how breaking the cycle is hard, but with support, and bravery, it’s possible. There’s also Dominic as a metaphor for those with “suits, faxes, and planes that beat you up with money and power”, a metaphor, sadly, with many modern day applications. So, yes, Wrong Turn at Lungfish is funny, at times it’s downright hilarious, but it’s also serious, and it’s extremely thought provoking.

Olympic Theatre Arts’ latest production, Wrong Turn at Lungfish, the comedy from writers Garry Marshall and Lowell Ganz, feels like a throwback, and in a lot of ways it is. Written in the early 1990s, it has the feel of a sitcom from the 1970s, complete with the angry and grumpy old man who seems to do nothing but throw insults at everyone out of fear, the fear of what he faces at the end of his life. But in his search for the meaning of life, he finds exactly what he needs in a young volunteer, in fact, they are exactly what each other needs and they find each other at exactly the right time. Led by the pair of Vince Campbell and Gabrielle Simonson in splendid performances, Wrong Turn at Lungfish is a story that is funny, but it’s also one layered with a deeper meaning, and like the best comedies, it is written and performed with the perfect combination of each. Sequim is a bit out of the way from Seattle, but this one is well worth a drive up to the Olympic Peninsula to Olympic Theatre Arts.

The Olympic Theatre Arts production of Wrong Turn at Lungfish runs on stage in Sequim through May 11. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.olympictheatrearts.org/.

Photo credit: Mark Klinke