Busywork that works

One frantic actor (Eric Wheeler, portraying Felix Artifex, a minor-league New York theatrical producer) trapped in phone hell for 90 minutes, fielding multiple desperate calls, with more on hold, trying to salvage deals that are dissolving.

There is, of course, no escape. The agent pops stress pills swilled with bottled water. Periodically, he pauses to make a confession of sorts to a colorful bug-eyed goldfish in an aquarium (a delightful puppet designed by retired Sacramento State University professor Richard Bay) as the desperate agent—haplessly living in a career fishbowl—bonds with a mute finned critter that is equally dependent on the whims of others.

Then the phone rings again, and we’re back down the rabbit hole.

Wheeler works up a sweat as Felix, talking himself hoarse as he wheedles and cajoles and boils over in the course of a relentless performance—he’s the hardest-working actor in town. Director Carolyn Howarth makes savvy choices, establishing resonances as the situation goes from bad to worse. Apprentice Anne Mason periodically interrupts as the well-intentioned secretary. Puppeteers Rob August and Janey Pintar, who alternate, make the goldfish behave in an anthropomorphic manner. Lighting designer Les Solomon dims and brightens to match each scene’s intensity. The script, by Craig Wright (of Six Feet Under fame) is bleak but funny.

This show recalls Fully Committed, the one-actor farce about a phone-bedeviled reservation clerk in the basement of an upscale restaurant—Matt K. Miller did it twice at the Sacramento Theatre Company; Gary Wright did it at the now-defunct and dearly missed Foothill Theatre Company. But Fully Committed had one actor playing the bullying callers and the hapless clerk. Mistakes Were Made is told solely by the unlucky theatrical agent, and it’s crammed with in-jokes about the biz. It’s not a holiday play, but insofar as it assures audience members unhappily enmeshed in the Christmas-shopping frenzy that some poor soul has it even worse than they do, it connects, with sardonic humor and a bit of pathos toward the end.