All hell breaks loose when wedding-proposal fireworks unleash monstrous horrors on a lakeside community in Sleeping Giant, the latest dark comedy treat from macabre master Steve Yockey.

Not that a love-smitten Ryan (Eric Patrick Harper) has anything but the best intentions where impressing his girlfriend Alex (Jacqueline Misaye) with pyrotechnics is concerned.

He has, after all, just finished reading “this really fascinating book called ‘Lost Palace Of The Butterfly King,’ and premarital explosives are just one of the rituals the book describes, no matter that said ritual “was also kind of gruesome and involved cutting up and eating the Father-in-Law.”

Unfortunately, if Alex wasn’t already upset enough about smoke filling their lake house, she’s even more dismayed when their friend Billy (Justin Lawrence Barnes) shows up dazed, bleeding from the nose, and terrified by what he’s seen emerging from the lake, a bug-eyed creature awakened it would seem by the incendiary force of the nearby fireworks, a tale of terror that comes to an end with a high-pitched, deafeningly loud roar emerging it would seem from somewhere other than the gaping cavity that is Billy’s mouth.

A dozen or so additional characters pop up in the six playlets that follow, most significantly Barbara (Andrea Flowers), a friend of Billy’s mother whose jaunty long-feathered “fascinator” (don’t call it a hat) suggests a woman unhinged;

Mable (Flowers again), whose way of dealing with tales of a beast frighteningly similar to one described in the Book of Revelations is to bake a very special cake for herself and two close friends; Jesse (Misaye), recently rejuvenated without the aid of plastic surgery thanks to some orally ingested blood-red seafood sold to her by a woman wearing a fascinator and a man who sounds an awful lot like Billy; Charlie (Barnes) and Dan (Harper), a gay couple who find their relationship jeopardized by the former’s cheating on the latter with a man sporting a tentacled wrist tattoo looking suspiciously like those worn by the “lake people;”

  the Butterfly King himself (Barnes) alongside none other than the cake-loving Mable; and finally a return visit to the play-opening trio joined now by a character whose presence, whether seen or simply spoken about, has become ubiquitous.

All of this adds up not only to a diabolically clever bit of writing but also a multi-role showcase for four talented, charismatic young actors, a chance for an expert design team to strut their imaginative stuff, and ninety deliciously creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky minutes of chills, thrills, and laughs for Road Theatre audiences.

As she did directing last year’s Mercury, Ann Hearn Tobolowsky proves herself in perfect sync with playwright Yockey’s mix of the humorous and the horrific, and she couldn’t be working with a more fabulous foursome than Barnes, Flowers, Harper, and Misaye in a variety of human and maybe-not-so-human roles.

Scenic designer Katrina Coulourides and projection designer Ben Rock join creative forces to take us to five distinct lakeside locales (and one other situated somewhere out of this world), with special kudos for Rock’s shadow puppet projections.

Derrick McDaniels’ striking lighting design ups the dramatic impact as does David B. Marling’s otherworldly sound design, Mylette Nora’s contemporary costumes help enormously in distinguishing one character from another, Scottie Nevil merits snaps for a potpourri of props, some of them decidedly creepy and crawly, and Jack Pullman does too for his Africanesque puppets.

Oh, and if there’s only a trace of the buckets of blood that have drenched previous Steve Yockey plays, Sleeping Giant more than makes up for their absence when an entirely different liquid makes a surprise 11th-hour appearance well worth waiting for.

Alternate cast members Billy Baker, Dor Gvirtsman, Bebe Katsenes, and Destinee Stewart perform at selected added performances. (See website.)

Sleeping Giant is produced by Danna Hyams and Taylor Gilbert. Maurie Gonzalez is production stage manager. David Johnson is production manager. David Elzer is publicist.

I’ve been a Steve Yockey fan since The Production Company debuted his Very Still And Hard To See back in 2012, and following last January’s Mercury, the prolific playwright (who also gave us two seasons of the bingeworthy The Flight Attendant on HBO Max) is batting two for two at the Road with Sleeping Giant. I for one had a devilishly good time.

The Road Theatre, NoHo Senior Arts Colony, 10747 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Through February 23. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 2:00.
www.RoadTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
January 24, 2025
Photos: Brian Graves

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Steve Yockey, The Road Theatre Company