There’s much to be enjoyed in Little Theatre’s ‘Yankee Tavern’

Steven Dietz's' recent play "Yankee Tavern" spends much of its first act having fun with conspiracy theories.

A young man, Adam (Jason Nino), has inherited a bar that's seen better days, and his main customer -- a nonpaying one -- is convinced that everything from the moon landing to the coffee we drink is part of an evil government plot. You can't help but love the guy, played by the beefy, middle-aged Ralph Weprinsky. He argues with such passion and logic that he damn near makes you wish he were right.

A stranger (Ryan Balint) enters the watering hole, and even though his back is to us for a good deal of time and he says almost nothing, we immediately know he's going to be trouble. In the second act, what seem to be real conspiracies engulf the characters' personal lives. The world is apparently not as simple as we like to believe.

Director T.J. Larsen gets a lot of mileage out of the script's intriguing realities. And there's one genuinely frightening performance by Balint. The actor seems to barely move, and yet he projects such a menacing tone that you can feel the violence that will inevitably explode. Balint demonstrates no affectations. He seems to be a shady guy that Larsen just happened to find on the street.

Nino projects a likable innocence as the bar owner. He always seems engrossed in what he's doing, whether it's reading a paper or drinking. He has the amateur's habit of physically leaning in to a person whenever he's trying to make a point, which, among other things, makes me hope he'll continue to push hard to improve.

But Larsen directs too broadly. Weprinsky obviously has the acting chops to play the lovable eccentric, but he's playing an actor's version of eccentric. Dana Wing Lau, as Adam's fiancee, gives us maybe three facial expressions for every one that's needed.

There's much to be enjoyed here. But the production is further indication that Larsen hasn't yet learned how to scale an actor's performance.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheaterchat@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.