It's easy to poke fun at eccentric early 20th century Heber Springs photographer Michael Disfarmer, an obvious oddball whose neighbors paid a quarter apiece -- during the Depression -- to have him take their portraits, rudely order them about and douse them with verbal abuse.
It may be even easier to make fun of the New York art gallery establishment that discovered Disfarmer a couple of decades ago and made a huge fuss over his "depressive realism."
It takes genius, however, to endow both the man and the gallery owners with sufficient audience sympathy while getting laughs at their expense.
That's what playwright Werner Trieschmann has done with Disfarmer, a 100-minute one-act play (sans intermission) that had its world premiere Thursday night at North Little Rock's Argenta Community Theater as part of the inaugural Acansa Arts Festival.
Trieschmann deftly weaves (with deft staging by the Arkansas Repertory Theatre's Bob Hupp) his portrait of the laconic, misanthropic photographer (a perfect portrayal by John Lenartz), who only wanted to commune with the light and press the shutter, in and out of a present-day (well, 2005) Heber Springs, as fish-out-of-water gay gallery buyer Vance (a fine job by Shannon Michael Wamser) besieges the bemused townsfolk seeking to buy their family keepsakes.
If Trieschmann didn't actually write the role of reluctant, lonely townswoman Carlee Long for Natalie Canerday, she certainly makes it her own, and with plenty of comic gusto. Excellent support comes from four other actors playing multiple roles: Alanna Newton, particularly as a bible-quoting socialite; James Mainard O'Connell, best as Vance's voluble gallery boss; Garrett Houston, most of all as a portrait subject and the portrait; and Mackenzie Holtzclaw as the play's pivot, a shy young thing who shows Disfarmer to himself.
Disfarmer runs through Saturday at the theater, 405 Main St., North Little Rock. The festival continues through Sunday at various Little Rock and North Little Rock venues. Ticket information is available by calling (501) 663-2287 or at the website, AcansaArtsFestival.org.
Metro on 09/26/2014