The bride wore redneck

NICE DAY FOR A WHITE TRASH WEDDING These wedding partiers look like they’re full of Southern Comfort.

The bride reeks of Poison. Not the Christian Dior fragrance, but the sickly-sweet Aqua Net stench only the quintessential hair band could muster. C.C. DeVille would approve of her überteased blond hair—and the power balladeer’s gear she’s got on to complement her pink miniskirt. The groom’s getup isn’t any fancier: overalls with red long johns peeking from underneath.

Sophisticated this wedding is not. But what else could you expect from Going to the Chapel or Bubba Ain’t Alone No More!, an interactive dinner-theater production playing monthly at Dave & Buster’s in west suburban Addison? Like the raucous Italian faux nuptials in Tony ’n’ Tina’s Wedding, Bubba dishes comedy alongside banquet-caliber food. You’re not seeing double though; true, pasta’s on the menu, but the similarities pretty much end there.

“Oh, the absurdity of it all,” says Dan Scurek, the actor playing Cooter, the best man who sports an orange hunting vest and a corresponding hunky mullet. “It’s like a Jeff Foxworthy monologue played out. You know you’re a redneck if…you’re anything like these people.”

The people he’s referring to are portrayed by eight actors who don the garb and personas of various hillbilly stereotypes. The mother, Candy Coral Reefer, is barely older than the less-than-wholesome bride Velma. Her daddy is nowhere to be found; in fact, some of the show’s running jokes involve the bride’s lack of, and quest for, a father figure. The good-natured Bubba, his cane-wielding grandma Mavis Mearl Mump and the due-anyday-now, about-to-pop maid of honor Harlequin “Harly” Jean Menudo round out the family of oddballs. The other actors take on secondary roles, like the erratically walking (for reasons unknown) reverend and the combo wedding coordinator–slash–funeral director.

“Usually, I’m the funeral director and my sister does the wedding coordinating, but she doesn’t like these people, so here I am,” producer and actor Paul Engelhardt explains in character. He’s wearing a penguin-inspired ensemble of black pants, black shoes, black coat and black tie, accented by a glaring white shirt and white tube socks.

The play debuted at a Dallas Dave & Buster’s last year and was created by the Murder Mystery Players—a Texas-based ensemble that performs dinner mysteries mainly for private events. Engelhardt, who runs the Chicago branch of the Players, decided to perform the event locally.

Engelhardt and fellow actor Tony Noice greet guests as they arrive, and Engelhardt hands them red-and-white peel-off name tags. But guests don’t fill in the blanks with their real names. Instead, they’re christened “Pride Benjamin,” “Betty Sue Clyville,” “Elvis Entsmenger” and the like. Engelhardt and his actors size up the audience as they enter, hopeful to scout out guest actors to play bridesmaids, groomsmen, Velma’s new daddy, Bubba’s probation officer or Cooter’s new girlfriend (cryptically named Pooper). Others are just given lines; a woman’s recruited to interrupt vows by calling Velma a tramp. “I pick people who seem eager,” Scurek says. “If somebody’s totally reticent, I don’t want to make them uncomfortable, since the jokes won’t be funny.”

The audience is mostly game to play along with the charade, signing in like real wedding guests and admiring the fruits of the gift table—Beans the Farting Dog toy, Elvis chocolates and a used caulk gun. There’s a small reception before the mayhem ensues.

“This is just how crude people live,” says first-time audience member Dorothy Neven from Elmhurst. “I enjoyed everything except for the drinking contest. The pregnant woman competed, and I told them that was not good.”

Bubba Ain’t Alone No More! says “I do” Saturday 28 at Dave & Buster’s in Addison, Illinois.