|
Regional Reviews: San Francisco A Feel Good Production of Also see Patrick's review of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Richard's review of Bauer
Standing on Ceremony opens with Jordan Harrison's The Revision as two men played by Scott Cox and Patrick Barresi are writing their vows and keep needing to revise the wording. Patrick is a stickler for changing some of the traditional words, such as "In the eyes of God and the ever-shifting whims of state and federal constitutional law." This a good start for the evening and both give first-rate portrayals of the two about to be married. Some of the plays are hilarious, such as Paul Rudnick's farce My Husband with two extraordinary actors, Colleen Egan and Scott Cox. The plot follows an overbearing Manhattan Jewish liberal democrat mother urgently trying to marry off her son to another man so she won't be outdone by her friends who are having lavish weddings for their gay sons. The nine-minute parody is full of wonderful sophisticated jokes on theatre performed by the two exceptional actors with great New York accents. Paul Rudnick's The Gay Agenda is sidesplitting as Colleen Egan plays a super-conservative Ohio leader and defender of the "traditional family." She starts to hear jaunty, bitchy voices after a gay couple move in next door. She believes that gay people are taking over the world, so she tries to be more open-minded than her husband who says Satan created gay people as a craft project. She tells the audience "Homosexuals are taking jobs away from black women." Doug Wright's On Facebook is an interesting re-enactment of a Facebook media comment thread by a strong-minded woman who does not believe that gays have the right to marry and another who firmly believes in gay marriage. This well-crafted 10-minute intense production has Katharine Chin and Sal Mattos wonderfully playing opposing roles. Mo Gaffney's A Traditional Wedding is a charmed and compassionate view of a lesbian couple, played amusingly by Colleen Egan and Katherine Chin who try to include a few ritual conventions at their wedding and finally decide to have a wedding planner. Wendy MacLeod's This Flight Tonight involves a lesbian couple interestingly played by Heidi Wolff and Katherine Chin waiting for their flight from Los Angeles to their wedding in Iowa. Heidi has to coax her intended spouse to get over the wedding jitters since Katherine would rather have been married in California. (This was before California legalized marriage same sex marriage.) Neil LaBute's Strange Fruit is heavy drama. This is the tale of two long-term partners played splendidly by Patrick Barresi and Sal Mattos who finally are going to tie the knot but things end tragically. Moisés Kaufman's London Mosquitoes has Patrick Barresi as a man poignantly delivering a moving eulogy for his partner who have been together for 46 years. He is a heartbroken man who explains that they never married because their union did not need a formal contract to validate it. The plays end with Jose Rivera's Pablo and Andrew at the Altar of Words which portrays the exchange of vows between two emotional guys as their friends look on. It reminds me of a daily soap opera but it is a nice ending to the evening. Standing on Ceremony plays through April 27 at the Walker Theatre, New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness. San Francisco. For tickets call 415-861-8972 or visit www.nctcsf.org. This production will also tour at the following cities the Gallo Center for the Arts in Modesto May 2nd; Unitarian Universalist Church in Fresno May 3rd; and the Performing Arts Center in Grass Valley May 9. Coming up next at the New Conservatory Theatre Center is Philip Dawkins' The Homosexuals opening on May 16 and running through June 28th.
|
