Tiffany Wolff and Alaska Jackson (Photo by Peggy McCartha)
Reviewed by Julia Stier
The Road Theatre Company
Through November 5
RECOMMENDED
After years of dating women, Faye (Tiffany Wolff) is finally engaged…to a man. Her fiancé, Alex (Brian Graves) is wonderful – patient, supportive, a preschool teacher. All in all, a great guy. Faye is excited to marry him, but one drunken night her best friend/ex-girlfriend, Genevieve (Alaska Jackson) forces Faye to confront her fear — that her new happiness may come at the cost of her queer identity.
Bisexual Sadness, written by India Kotis and directed by Carlyle King, looks for answers to Faye’s big question: As a bisexual woman married to a man, will she still be accepted into queer spaces?
Opening night featured the “Edna St. Vincent Millay” cast, and will be switching off with the “Roxanne Gay” cast.
While dealing with her identity crisis, Faye is also housing her sister, Miranda (Karrie King), whose marriage has dissolved and who clutches the crystals she wears around her neck like a lifeline. Miranda’s child, Naomi (Gloria Ines), an almost-eight grader, has recently come out as non-binary, and in a heartbreaking moment of vulnerability tells Faye that they just want people to know that they’re “real.”
The performances from this ensemble are strong across the board. When Wolff and Jackson are onstage together as Faye and Genevieve, the inside jokes and friendly quips flow so effortlessly that it’s easy to feel like a fly on the wall. With her wide eyes, frenetic energy, and blue and pink-streaked hair, King perfectly captures the melodrama of a woman at her wit’s end.
As Naomi, Ines masters the mannerisms of a middle-schooler, and brought this critic near tears with their confession of not wanting to have to carry the emotional burdens of everyone around them.
With his “She’s Everything…He’s Just Ken,” T-shirt, Graves as Alex is a quintessential golden retriever boyfriend (sorry, fiancé). Finally, though she only pops in for a moment, Andrea Flowers as Genevieve’s new girlfriend, Lillian, is delightfully irritating (Don’t worry, that’s a compliment).
Jenna Bergstraesser’s costume design tells the audience TONS about the characters before they even open their mouths (see above references to crystals and Ken shirts). Never before have costumes impressed me so much as descriptive of the characters.
The Road Theatre Company, NoHo Senior Arts Colony, 10747 Magnolia Blvd., N. Hollywood. Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm; thru Nov. 5. www.RoadTheatre.org. Runtime: 80- minutes with no intermission.
