Every time the Buntport Theater takes to the stage with its latest original production, you can all but tape-measure the leap in its rapid development as an innovative, intelligent and comic young theater company.

But that does not equate to a satisfying evening for its audiences every time out.

Buntport is a 5-year-old company that presents only ensemble works of its own creation. A glorious musical adaptation of “Titus” performed in a transformational van put Buntport on the local map in 2001.

Last year’s Kabuki-esque “Cinderella,” featuring actors changing form and character before our eyes with a script written entirely in gibberish, helped Buntport win The Denver Post’s Ovation Award for best new work.

“McGuinn and Murry,” its 13th and latest production, is easy to like but nearly impossible to love.

In some ways the play is both spoof and homage to 1940s Raymond Chandler-style film noir. Its malleable magic is immediately evident not only in the way two terrific actors (Brian Colonna and Erin Rollman) slip in and out of the skins of eight (by my count) characters, but more impressively in the way one simple, large office desk spins, splits apart, expands, collapses and unfolds into seven distinct and often surreal settings.

But “McGuinn and Murry” is more clever in concept than in execution. It falters in the one department where Buntport has been above reproach. The writing, so consistently taut and clever in nearly every previous staging, lacks its usual confidence, precision and wit. The dialogue is uncharacteristically repetitive and only occasionally rises to the witty repartee of the period it satirizes (A terrific exception: “Let’s all put our pieces down before someone squirts metal”).

Worse, the constant yelling establishes a tone that goes beyond the tough-talking demeanor of the day and strangely into the realm of the cold and mean.

As a result, we have exasperating characters telling a tiresome story that becomes intricate to the point of oblivion.

McGuinn (Colonna) and Murry (Rollman) are a pair of hard-boiled detectives, partners seemingly patterned in the vein of Nick and Nora Charles, minus the sexual tension. They are so underemployed they make up fictitious crimes to solve. When McGuinn says, “Even our pretend cases are dull, doll,” he’s not kidding.

But one morning, a series of misunderstandings propel the plot on a course that is part “Maltese Falcon,” part “Murder By Death” and part “Three’s Company.” After his wife has gone missing, the whiskey-soured McGuinn comes to believe he may have played a part in her disappearance.

The charm of the production is also its downfall. Audiences watch as the realigned set pieces take us to unexpected locales. With four sticks and some rope, for example, the desktop cleverly becomes a boxing ring. While most settings are grounded in reality (a restaurant, nightclub, park), others are straight out of “Being John Malkovich” in the way they play with spatial distortion.

The desktop rises to become the front door of an apartment where, when McGuinn walks in, he immediately finds himself atop a kitchen counter. In the evening’s extended climax, the desk turns into a miniaturized skyline where, from our faraway vantage point, we see a chase played out with Matchbox cars.

But these brilliant transformations require so many long and choppy set changes that they sabotage the storytelling momentum. The payoff requires far too much patience.

But even on an awkward opening night, it was clear Rollman and Colonna are two of the best and smartest performers working in Denver.

Rollman has the most fun of the two, playing characters such as an uptight Murry, McGuinn’s ditsy wife Budge and an uncanny “Fat Man” – an oxygen-deprived old fight fixer. She also has the best lines, such as when, as Budge, she discovers a letter advising McGuinn to get rid of her. “I don’t think my husband should be receiving a letter like this … not at the house, anyway,” she says in a sublime moment.

Colonna’s Phillip Marlowe-like McGuinn draws somewhat on Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum and Jackie Gleason, but he’s at his best when he’s simply being himself.

There is every likelihood that with pros like Colonna and Rollman, “McGuinn and Murry” might still find the right comic tone. But even if it is not Buntport’s best work, Buntport on an off-night is still better than a night at many other theaters in town.

-John Moore, January 09, 2004, Denver Post