By Mark Collins Camera Theater Critic, 05/07/2010

LAFAYETTE — Within the first three minutes of the play “Lloyd’s Prayer,” we encounter a man in a bathrobe wielding a shotgun, a woman in curlers wielding a thick Minnesota accent and a feral boy who’s been raised by raccoons.

It’s only the beginning of the journey through the strange and mostly wonderful two-act comedy.

Kevin Kling’s “Lloyd’s Prayer” premiered in 1988 at the Humana Festival of New Plays in Louisville, Ky. It’s a wonder the imaginative comic parable isn’t performed more often — done well and it’s an audience pleaser for sure.

Theater Company of Lafayette’s production is just that.

Most of the play’s characters are imprisoned in some way. Bob, the Raccoon Boy (Kyle LaBoria), begins the play literally caught in a trap, until he’s freed by Mom (Jacqueline Garcia), a housewife trapped in an unfulfilling marriage.

Lloyd (Ash VanScoyoc) is awaiting his release from prison when we first meet him. After he’s let out, he discovers Bob and sets out to turn a buck in a series of snake-oil and pulpit schemes. The two encounter an Angel (Garcia), trapped in her spiritual state, and curious about earthly pleasures.

During its whimsical journey, the characters seemed driven by a deep-down soul-level yearning, and some discover whispers from God in unlikely places. Sometimes, though, the play wanders too far a field. Midway through the second act, it starts to feel like a conversation with an overly talkative friend. OK, we get the gist, but where are you going with this, and can we hurry up and get there?

What’s clear is that director Brian Miller employs the Mary Miller Theater’s cramped stage as effectively as I’ve seen there. Using a metal platform, cutouts of billowy clouds, two large tree branches and some theatrical imagination, Miller easily brings the play’s nine very different settings into focus without any distracting fuss.

Mary Secor’s costuming — from the loud and delightfully garish to the plain and simple — accents the evening well.

Most of the play’s nine characters are meat for hungry actors, and the TCL cast members take big bites throughout.

Garcia nearly steals the show. Her reading of the Biblical I’m-here-and-I’m-an-Angel line “be amazed” works every time. Jeff Garner is comically irritable as Dad, the man who first discovers a raccoon boy in his backyard. LaBoria capture’s Bob’s curious innocence. At first VanScoyoc plays Lloyd broadly, but the performance becomes more complex the more he settles down and lets us see the pain and anger that drives the ex-con.

Contact Camera Theater Critic Mark Collins at 303-473-1369 or BDCTheater@comcast.net.