Woody Harrelson’s car crash of a play features a wacky ensemble, but David Coomber (far right) steals the show as Clint, a shrieky, Judy Garland-loving unhinged roommate. (Carol Rosegg)
‘Bullet for Adolf” has all the markings of a cult show — it could be theater’s answer to a midnight movie.
Directed and co-written by Woody Harrelson, this new off-Broadway play is often inept and always profane, with cartoonish characters and an eye-rollingly ridiculous story.
It’s also oddly compelling.
For the semi-autobiographical setting, Harrelson and co-writer Frankie Hyman drew from their days working construction jobs in Houston and the salty mixed nuts they hung around with.
So we’re back in 1983, a couple of years before Harrelson’s “Cheers” gig. To make it blindingly obvious, quick-paced edits of vintage videos, newsy soundbites, movies and ads flash by between scenes. Reagan, “Flashdance,” Pepsi versus Coke, “Go ahead, make my day”: It’s all there.
At first, this seems like pandering, but the videos provide a grounding counterbalance to the surreal happenings onstage.
And there’s lots of it, loosely connected by a flimsy plot about a missing gun that was almost used to kill Hitler. Sexy black women karate-chopping hapless white dudes, pot-addled banter, constant cussing, racial humor — we’re in cheeseball Tarantino territory.
But the show also has a sincere, goofy nature that somehow makes the silly dialogue seem like inspired nonsense:
“Shareeta is the Ethiopian term for the number of heartbeats per minute,” a character says, explaining her name.
“In other words, pulse?” another replies.
You never know where this play is going, probably because Harrelson and Hyman don’t, either.
Nominally, the leads are the authors’ stand-ins, Frankie (Tyler Jacob Rollinson) and Zach (Brandon Coffey).
But the breakout character is Zach’s loco roommate, Clint (David Coomber), a supposedly straight, reformed Baptist who flounces about in a robe and loves Judy Garland.
Coomber’s performance is memorably deranged. He consistently comes up with ever more bizarre ways to declaim his lines, and his high-pitched shriek of a laugh will haunt my dreams.
Rude, crude and often clueless, “Bullet for Adolf” isn’t for everybody. But at a time when many plays are well-crafted but personality-free, this one stands out as a happy, devil-may-care car crash.