Ignacio Navarro and Dani True (Photo by Daniel J. Parker and Sean Durrie)
Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
Sawyer’s Playhouse at Loft Ensemble
Through June 9
RECOMMENDED
In this era of plunging marital and birth rates, the given definition of “family” has expanded beyond the nuclear unit of father, mother, kids. The friends in Molly Wagner’s world premiere play, #CaseyAndTommyGetHitched, may not be related by blood, but they formed an indissoluble family unit back in college. And although they may not have seen each other much in the six years since graduation, that familial bond remains undiminished.
The group reunites in a backwater Pennsylvania hotel (Madylin Sweeten Durrie’s convincingly dusty and timeworn set) for the wedding of their close friend Tommy (Sean Alan Mazur), who is marrying Casey, the offstage fiancée that none of them has ever met. The fact that an unknown individual is joining their tight ranks isn’t the problem. The fly in the ointment here is that Tommy is gay, a fact well known to all, particularly Adrian (Ignacio Navarro), his former lover, whom Tommy has reluctantly invited to his nuptials at the insistence of Liz (Sarah Nilsen), an unreconstructed wild-child-turned-teacher who has a hidden reason for deploring Tommy’s imminent nuptials.
The gathering includes successful writer Viv (Amye Partain), who feels she has sold out her talent for money, and Kendra (Dani True) who left her poorly paid journalistic career for a steady paycheck. Baffled and appalled by Tommy’s decision to lead a closeted life, his friends debate outing him to his clueless fiancée. Meanwhile, Silas Jean-Rox’s comically non-speaking concierge struggles to fix the malfunctioning elevator while being seduced by the randy Kendra.
Although the play deals with serious issues about the prerogatives and parameters of friendship, comedy predominates, as particularly evidenced by Bridget Avildsen’s wildly offbeat costumes, which are as unlikely as they are fun.
The high spirits occasionally overstep into slapstick, but that’s a minor fault in co-directors Natasha Renae Potts and Durrie otherwise assured production, which lets the actors off the chain in a naturalistic staging notable for its loosely improvisational tone. The impressive ensemble lends a richly scattershot quality to the dialogue — the boozy, propulsive chat of intimates anxious to catch up, sometimes poignantly, on each other’s lives. And although some lines are lost in the hectic exchanges, that may have been more due to a thrumming air conditioner than the actors’ enunciation.
The penultimate scene, a nail-biter in which the pushy and meddlesome Liz, convinced that Tommy is making a huge mistake, phones Casey to out him while the other characters frantically try to deter her. That tense interchange poses the question: Does the sense that one is right ever supersede kindness and restraint? In a time of misguided moral absolutism and division, it’s a point to ponder.
Sawyer’s Playhouse at Loft Ensemble, 11031 Camarillo St., Noho. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm Sun., 7 pm; thru June 9. (818) 452-3153. www.loftensemble.org 80 minutes with no intermission.
