Mini-Review -- `Catch A Falling Star': An Awkward Past On Parade

In the clean, cozy little town of Edmonds, the clean, cozy little Edge of the World Theatre is staging a play about . . . a porn star!

But wait, Committee to Protect the Morality and General Niceness of Community Theatre - please, put away your picket signs. "Catch a Falling Star" has no nudity, hardly any rough language, no sex.

This turns out to be much closer to Tinker Bell than Courtney Love.

Written by Lee Murphy, "Falling Star" is too sloppily crafted and dragged out to be very funny, too over-the-top to be believably dramatic.

The falling star of the title is Ginny Wakely, who left a small Texas town to become a star - of a dog-food commercial. After a long absence, Ginny returns to Dewey for her 33rd birthday. Like most mothers, Virginia Wakely thinks her child deserves a welcome-home parade. Frighteningly, she actually goes through with it.

And what perfect timing: People magazine is just about to do a story exposing the dog-food star's porn past. Ginny agonizes about telling her doting mother and St. Bernardish (complete with the bottle of booze) father about what she's actually been doing in Los Angeles.

We're expected to believe that Ginny sank into hell because of her former husband. "The drugs, the porno," she moans to her sister. "What I did for love." Sure . . .

Stretching a thin premise well past two hours, Murphy throws dozens of tornado-like outbursts and an actual tornado into this

direction-less show. The play itself is about as grounded as a mobile home in a twister.

The game cast struggles to choke laughs out of tortured situations. The best work comes from Melissa Timms, a fine actress who - like her Ginny - deserves much better, and Carl Wolff, very amusing as a drawling Vietnam War veteran turned Buddhist pacifist.

"Catch a Falling Star" plays through Oct. 11 at Edge of the World Theatre, 9673 Firdale Ave., Edmonds; $17.50; 206-542-7529.