Luke Sorge’s new comedy earns its laughs, then abandons them in Act 2.

The world premiere of Taco Town by local playwright Luke Sorge — whose National Bohemians premiered at Miners Alley last year — starts out as a fairly funny episode of a workplace sitcom. But a sharp tonal change in Act 2 breaks the comic flow, leaving us wondering what happened.

That said, a fine cast generates plenty of laughs along the way. Deft staging and direction by Len Matheo add a good deal of physical comedy. The set by Xander Claypool, prop design and set dressing by Samantha Piel and costumes by Crystal McKenzie put us squarely in the brightly lit world of Taco Town. Matheo’s sound design is a crucial element amplifying the humor of the play.

Along with serving up laughs, Taco Town’s message is that everyone has a story and needs to be treated as a human with value — except for capitalist money-grubbing bosses and owners. This point is made repeatedly, and while a comedy can rise above this trope, Taco Town doesn’t move beyond it.

Taco Town crew members, from left: Jysten Atom, Paola Miranda, Maya Ferrario and Amy Arpan. | Photo: McLeod9 Creative

The residents of Taco Town

Taco Town focuses on one morning at a fast-food franchise, one of three stores owned by uptight nepo baby Dustin (Brett Mack). The work crew is a mix of recognizable characters who chafe at Dustin’s actions as the boss while confronting typical financial issues of low-wage employees. There is Roddy (Jysten Atom), who has been at Taco Town for nine years without even being considered for a promotion to manager due to a felony conviction. Isaac (Ethan Hoover) is written as a nerdy gamer who aspires to go to MIT but, for financial reasons, is attending Front Range Community College.

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Tessa (Paola Miranda) is a Latina rebel of indeterminate age who is in revolt against her family and any hierarchy. She gets one of the biggest laughs in the show when she takes control of a situation by switching to Spanish. Trudy (Amy Arpan) is the flighty 50-year-old who just wants to hug everybody, but who might not be all there. Completing the cast of characters is Kym (Maya Ferrario), the 30-something store manager whom life has passed by. She also is a high school classmate of Dustin.

Kym’s personal issues make her late and not ready to open the store. That leads to her decision not to open it at all. At first reluctantly, the work crew goes along out of concern for their co-worker. When Dustin’s texts and calls to open the store are ignored, he has the police arrive as if there were a hostage situation. The employees respond by reframing the failure to open as a protest against Dustin.

In Act 2, Dustin manages to enter the store, and a series of personal revelations leads to a dramatic shift away from the comedy. While some of the reveals seem obvious from early in the play, there also are apparent twists that are not fully resolved — like whether Dustin is crooked or not.

Maya Ferrario as the tormented fast-food manager Kym in ‘Taco Town.’ | Photo: McLeod9 Creative

Game cast

While Kym’s story is at the heart of the show, Miranda’s Tessa and Arpan’s Trudy stand out, generating many of the laughs with relatable characters that the actors fully embrace.

Hoover tries to bring life to Isaac, but the character is so underwritten that his motivations are muddy. The script is similarly unclear about Roddy. Atom lets us see why Roddy is unhappy in his position even as he tries to be a good employee, but the script doesn’t explain why he’s been at Taco Town for nine years. With that kind of loyalty, we might think he’d be the last person to go along with the protest, but he embraces it.

Ferrario’s Kym is a reluctant originator and leader of the protest, whose emotions and actions flit from moment to moment. Ferrario tries to maintain a character through-line, but it’s not there in the script. As a result, the revelations about Kym’s relationships are less believable.

Dustin’s heartlessness, racism, sexism and ageism are all right there on the page, leaving Mack little room to suggest the character growth that’s supposed to arrive late in Act 2. Missing early on is any hint that he’s anything other than a corporate bully since the crew seems to fear and dislike him in equal measure.

In Act 2, instead of weaving various character revelations leading to a funny conclusion, there is a string of one-on-one scenes between Dustin and each of the work crew who then leave one by one. They take all of the funny with them on the way out, leaving us with the final, serious scene between Dustin and Kym. Things veer so sharply from comedy to drama that it detracted from both. I was left with that “is that it?” feeling at the end.

Taco Town has a good many Colorado references local audiences will appreciate. The opening night crowd appeared to enjoy itself and there was plenty of loud, hearty laughter. But the best comedies earn their endings, and Sorge’s script just doesn’t quite get there.