Theater review: “The Whale” a drama of gigantic proportions

It’s hard to tell who to like and who to pity in Samuel Hunter’s enjoyably tragic “The Whale,” a new production from the Denver Center Theatre Company. The play, about a 500-pound man trying to make a lot of things right in his last days, manages to be gross and engrossing at the same time, loaded with characters obsessively driven to do the right thing.

Only they are dead wrong, of course. You can see it right up front, but they don’t get it until this 2-hour and 11-minute death scene is played out.

Hunter’s play is deceptively large, considering its small cast and single set. The entire thing takes place in one junked-up living room where Charlie, too big to get around, spends much his day positioned awkwardly on a sofa that has to be propped up on concrete blocks to hold his weight.

But the topics are grand — religion, sexuality, marriage, parenting — and the tone is urgent. Charlie, after all, is on the way out and there’s no time to waste.

As the fat, fat man grasps his heart in pain, the people around him say what they need to, often in ways that are more profane than profound. Family secrets are spilled at rapid speed. This is opera without the music, soap opera without the commercials. And it is also high-caliber contemporary drama.

Luckily Charlie gives us a few good laughs along the journey and there’s something warm in the way he wants the people around him to come together. That includes his best friend Liz, a nurse whose treatment method is a combination of tough love and Subway sandwiches, his estranged 17-year-old daughter Ellie, who uses the Internet as a weapon of mass destruction, and his ex-wife, Mary, who still feels wronged by Charlie’s abandonment 15 years earlier. There’s also a Mormon in the mix, a 19-year-old missionary who might have been smarter to knock on the door of the apartment next door.

These are complicated characters and, really, the thing that makes “The Whale” such a rich night of theater. Charlie is a riddle – why would a man eat himself to death – but so are his pals. The revelations are surprising, challenging, involving.

This play would be hard to watch, it it were less fascinating to look at. The set, with its fast food wrappers and disheveled blinds keeps everything glaringly in the moment. And there’s a mini-drama every time Charlie shifts his weight or attempts to get off the couch. Will he make it to his feet?

The play stands on its own, however. With its heady topics and foul language, it’s a bit of a stretch for this particular Denver stage. But it’s very much a play of today and audiences ready to engage the times should understand its rewards.

Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540 or rrinaldi@denverpost.com

“The Whale” *** (out of four stars)

Heavy drama. Presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company at the Ricketson Theatre in the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Written by Samual D. Hunter, directed by Hal Brooks. Starring Tom Alan Robbins, Angela Reed, Cory Michael Smith, Nicole Rodenburg, Tasha Lawrence. Through Feb. 25. 2 hours, 11 minutes. 6:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets start at $35. 303-893-4100 or denvercenter.org.