By Michael Margolin
The second half of the Gay Play Series (or GPS for short) got underway Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. sharpish at The Ringwald Theatre in Ferndale. The Series seems to be developing into an annual event, although The Ringwald has done its best to keep the gay flag flying between 12-month happenings.
It probably need not be said, but there are reviewers' rules, just like Robert's, though easier to remember, so I need to tell you the four original one acts are performed with one intermission on a slightly elevated stage with black walls; there is one door, so just about the only way on and off. Therefore, no flying helicopters or wondrous effects, just people on stage putting on a show. There are a couple of exceptions I will get to down below – no pun intended.
The first play – actually a sketch – is called "Intervention" by Dyan Bailey, directed by Jamie Richards. In its few minutes, it presents an intervention and the aftermath two months later. It seems that Jamie (Anthony Gross) is being outed by his family and best friend Erica (Julie Spittle) – lured there under the pretext of trying out for "The Great Race." In reality, his doting parents (Lisa Jesswein and Jamie Richards) want him to accept his gayness so they can luxuriate in having a gay son, and his sister, Susan,(Melissa Beckwith), just wants him out – of her life and her friends' lives who end up being his friends. Maybe because she is just so darned angry all the time – as a brief vignette with her and Erica shows, amusingly, two months later.
Well, the idea is cute, but puzzling, as Jamie is so far out he seems tethered to a space capsule. However, after some badinage and a few tears, Jamie ends up down on earth with the intervention leader (John Nowaczyk), so it is really a fairy tale with a happy ending.
The onstage scene was furnished with the identical chairs we in the audience sat on, which led me to believe that this would in some way become a subtext, or that the line between us and the characters would be treated dramatically. No such luck.
In "I Had to Meet You Like This Here (Again) (One More Time)" by Brian Walker, two men meet in one of those places with glory holes to which men cum for anonymous sex. These two, however, seem to have engaged in some sex and then, this time, some debate over a "relationship." Thomas and Kyle (Joe Plambeck and Matthew Turner Shelton) engage in some "will I, won't you have a relationship" rather than just a fuck and suck and goodbye; one argues the other will be lonely, the other suggests that relationships don't start in such places, and once in a while a hand comes out of the holes in the walls offering lascivious encounters.
At playlet end, they decide that as each live "across the river," maybe tonight is the night to go home together. Another fairly tale. But, hey, everyone is entitled to a happy life even if it is dramatically inert.
The author seems to be having an interior dialogue with himself about how do men cross the barrier from sex to love, and it is one that deserves dramatization, although here the two characters seem mostly to be repeating thoughts that don't really go beyond the superficial, and I cannot say that the director, Joe Bailey, had much to work with to make it seem any deeper.
The penultimate one-act, "Vowed and Wowed," is by Rich Orloff and directed by Matthew Turner Shelton, who shows more wit and animation than he did as Kyle in the last play.
It seems that Betty (Christa Coulter) has been carrying on with Charlotte (Vanessa Sawson), and we encounter them just as Betty has received a phone call that her spouse, Francine (Katie Galazka), after her tour of duty and subsequent injuries, is just out of the VA hospital and is on her way to reclaim her marriage.
As they say in the Yiddish theater, "Oi."
So what we have here is a farce, one of those things that depends on timing, unsubtle characterization and fast paced, often illogical, stage direction. It all seems to come together, rather funnily, with the assistance of some very good shoes.
Well, let me explain: When we first see Betty, she is wearing a cute above-the-knee frock and some damn fine purple suede peek-toe stiletto heel pumps, and from them she gets her animated mincing gait and perhaps her ditzy starlet routine that animates her pretty, expressive face. Sometimes a good pair of shoes can do that for you.
In comes Charlotte, and she is wearing black platform sandals – no nonsense, but kick-ass. She is not going to give Betty up to her soldier – married or not. When Francine presents herself at the door – well, I won't give up the joke, but it was invented by English playwright John Dekker, a contemporary of Shakespeare's, in his play about a soldier returning from war, "The Shoemaker's Holiday."
What matters here is that she is in combat fatigues and tall, brown lace-up boots. What ensues is a snappy little dance of possession among three very differently shod feet until finally… let's just say that this subversive little play ends up as a chorus line.
Orloff and his director should team up again.
After an intermission, the play "A Few Survivors" by Jason Sebacher and well directed by Harry Wetzel presents the history of a relationship in some seven scenes, if I counted correctly. It begins with a vintage recording of a torch song, then elides into the famous broadcast of the Hindenburg airship disaster, then segues into an ornately dressed, older man Robert Such in an ornate costume suggesting the Edwardian period, coming onstage. He is wearing a pith helmet over a mop head wig.
Soon he is joined by Mark Halpin in an outrageously funny turquoise three-piece suit. The costumes, this time, are credited and Sheree Coluccelli deserves the credit.
We soon learn that the men are well over 100 years old and have been meeting for centuries around the world to have sex, and that one is a Hindenburg survivor. We are in Samuel Beckett country, and this is not at all a bad thing. In fact, it is a very good thing, for surrealism in writing is almost a lost art and can enrich a text by unnerving us, forcing us to look at something else – Edward Albee has mined this genre successfully – in this case what it means to survive the ones we love.
Audiences are asked to vote on their favorite actor and play at the end of the performances. While I don't get a vote, if I did I would cast a vote for Christa Coulter as the wide-eyed Betty, whose demeanor is like a cartoon – just look at her face light up when asked if she wants two women to fight over her; and the final play which delves into the area of the human emotions with a light hand and elegant theatricality.
But, then, there are those purple suede peep-toes, and if there were awards for footwear, these would be a shoe-in.
REVIEW:
'Gay Play Series: Block B'
Who Wants Cake? at The Ringwald, 22742 Woodward Ave., Ferndale. Block A performs at 8 p.m. Friday, June 24 and 1 p.m. Sunday, June 26. Block B performs at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 25 and 5 p.m. Sunday, June 26; the winning production will be given a special encore performance at 8 p.m. Monday, June 27. $10 per event; $30 pass. 248-545-5545. http://www.whowantscaketheatre.com.
