A laugh of biblical ‘Proportions’

Young Chang

How not to make a movie:

When filming a burning bush scene, create an uncontrollable and

dangerous fire.

If shooting on a faraway desert, make sure you have no way of getting

home.

Sign on as the director and then quit in the middle of the shoot.

Abuse potentially life-threatening props.

Orange Coast College’s production of Larry Coen and David Crane’s

“Epic Proportions,” a play-within-a-play staging of filmmaking gone awry,

satirizes 1930s Hollywood through a comedy of errors.

The piece, which will end Sunday, resembles a compilation of outtakes,

said director John Ferzacca. Just a big blooper sequence and a whole

bunch of laughs.

“It’s not a serious play at all,” he said. “I don’t usually do comedy,

but I found this one particularly funny.”

With a cast of 25, considered huge by Ferzacca and leading actors

Alison Hartson and Kyle Kopp, the production is newly released for

amateur use. Broadway just did a short run of the play with Tony-winner

Kristen Chenoweth last year.

“I like doing plays that are new rather than the same old plays that

everyone does, because there’s still room to breathe new life into it,”

Ferzacca said. “The script was very sparse, and you get to add a lot of

things to it to make it work.”

The story is about a movie crew filming the story of the Bible in

Arizona. Problems abound and fiction muddles with reality.

The cast suffers from the 10 plagues. They get “done in” by the

burning bush. An unexpected extra rises from his ranks to save the show.

Kopp, a theater major in his first year at OCC, said the biggest

challenge in rehearsing for the show was trying to keep a straight face.

“The comedy is so obvious, you can’t miss it,” he said. “The audience

gets that every time, and even if a line’s delivered wrong, it’s still so

hilarious.”

Hartson, a fourth-year student and a theater major, credits the

writing of Coen and Crane in making the piece a certifiable comedy.

“I think comedy’s one of the hardest to do in theater because it’s

hard to hit the punch lines directly without overdoing it,” she said.

“But [the script] is very well-written, very witty . . . very

fast-paced.’

FYI

WHAT: “Epic Proportions”

WHEN: 8 p.m. today and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Orange Coast College’s Drama Lab Theatre, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa

COST: $9-$10

CALL: (714) 432-5880