Thanks for the ride

There are road trips, and then there are road trips.

The first kind involves sitting for hour upon passing hour in hopefully a reliable and comfy enough car, kilometre upon passing kilometre over blacktop delineated by lines and punctuated by signs on what’s coming up next. Hopefully there is interesting, maybe beautiful, even startling scenery to look at; but sometimes there just isn’t.

The second kind involves the internal journey that occurs within travellers.It’s inevitable. Anyone who’s ever taken a longer road trip can vouch for that. And hopefully, equally, that kind of trip is interesting, maybe beautiful, even startling. Sometimes it’s all three.

Magnus Theatre’s Mesa  is about both kinds of road trips for two ordinary guys who don’t really choose to go on their adventure, that part being out of their hands it must be said. But they do decide to embark upon it together come what may. It’s “come what may” because there’s a third invisible traveller in their car, sitting between them as a hindrance, at times as an unexpected friend, and always as that inevitable in everyone’s lives: the passage of time.

George Merner as Bud is near perfect for what one imagines a strong-willed, well-seasoned 93-year-old to be. Off the top he charms us with emcee schtick, telling us a naughty little joke or two, and giving us a lovely glimpse of the figure he in younger years must have cut with his wife on a dance floor. Not to mention the protective loving husband he was by Molly’s side as long as she was with him on this earth. Yes, the audience has an easier time overlooking Bud’s stubborn streak; after all, he’s had lots of years to get set in his ways and that’s okay. Mind you, we’re not doing the driving.

The driver, Paul, played by Adrian Griffin seems to have a harder time of it; and for awhile this reviewer wondered why. Why this strange, for lack of a better word, disconnect? Sure, the frustrating dips and valleys his character is required to fall into during the trip – no music, no amazing scenery, no off-the-beaten-track rest stops, no restful sleeps, no meeting-of-the-minds during conversation – all are sympathetically apparent.

So maybe it has more to do with the second kind of road trip Griffin’s Paul is also required to take, the internal searching one.

We start to see his artistic idealism fade a little more each time Bud nixes another detour. We hear it fade a little more each time Paul calls home only to reach an answering machine. Remember that Bud has six more decades of life lessons under his belt. Maybe Griffin’s seeming disconnect, as said for this reviewer, is more about how true the actor is to playwright Doug Curtis intent.

Music man Danny Johnson is, as always, a most talented mood and atmosphere setter. In Mesa he has us moving right along that blacktop, mile upon passing mile. Where Johnson absolutely shines, though, is with his three characters: bursts of half-cocked fun, vivid personalities with disturbingly likeable redneck tendencies that spark up the action just when one thinks Paul and Bud are growing weary of their road trip. Thanks for the ride, Danny!

Directed by Mario Crudo, the open road, destination Mesa, beckons to travellers until Nov.12. Call the box office for tickets soon.