Austinist Reviews: Overwhelming Underdogs

The world's just not as much fun as it used to be, what with all the global warming, credit crises, genocide, and other assorted world events that get us down, bum us out and convince us that, yeah, totally—the sky is falling. Thank goodness for Joe Hartman's new one man show, Overwhelming Underdogs, in its second strong week at Arts on Real. Hartman's writing and acting, Kirk German's directing, and maybe a glass of wine from the in-theatre bar is the perfect antidote to thinking about all that other stuff.

Hartman brings a skillfully awkward and vulnerable charm to this show; his portrayals comprise diverse characters such as Ahrmud Bersai, the six year old spelling prodigy who just can't catch a break and Patty Maxene who will not, repeat WILL NOT rest until the office yogurt thief has been summarily apprehended and punished.

Overwhelming Underdogs takes Hartman's considerably deft skill and crafts what could be challengingly trite characters—like a young boy confessing to his mom his love for Judy Garland and a semi-shallow retail therapy queen who just wants to be loved (is that so wrong?)—into touching, hilarious heroes and heroines, wholly believable in spite of their wacky, campy qualities. Act Two even takes that most predictable of genres—drag—and gifts the audience with a quirky, sweet tale of a determined chanteuse winding her way across the mid-west on her "Butterchurn Tour," which is fitting, because this show? Yep. It's like buttah.