Kiel Kennedy and Kapil Talwalker (Photo by Jeff Lorch)
Reviewed by Martín Hernández
Rogue Machine at The Matrix
Through Sept. 1
RECOMMENDED
As we enter another tense presidential election season, playwright Eric Pfeffinger’s sly comedy of errors is a welcome relief from the daft discourse of cable news shows of all political persuasions that feed off polarization. Pfeffinger dives deep into the Right /Left chasm that is the USA’s politics and posits the radical notion that the folks on the “other side” may be just as human as those on your “side.” While that notion is quaint and his plot farfetched, Pfeffinger offers a clever engagement of rare and thoughtful political dialogue between opposing views, with his spry wit delivering plenty of laugh-filled and moving moments from the culture clash of his characters.
Sameer (Kapil Talwalkar), who works at an academic research facility, and Madelyn (Kristen Vaganos) , a yoga instructor, are latte-drinking liberals from Michigan desperate to have a child. This leads them to a fertility clinic run by the hapless Dr. Hoskins (Andrew Hawtrey in an anxiety-filled turn.) Already stressed out about the process, they are shocked to learn that the clinic mistakenly implanted their embryo into another woman. While the irate Sameer and Madelyn threaten legal — and other — action against him, Dr. Hoskins suggests they talk to the other couple and come to some agreement.
When Sameer and Madelyn meet the Ohio couple in their upscale suburban home, their worst fears are realized. Jim (Kiel Kennedy) and Heather (Lauren Burns) are as conservative as they come. He is a “red-blooded American” small business owner and Ohio State football fan (“Go Bucks” is his mantra) while she is a Christian “domestic engineer” and stay-at-home mom for her three boys —she went the IVF route for a daughter due to unexpected infertility. Rather than conflict, however, the couples come to an amenable arrangement — which says a lot about Jim’s and Heather’s view on race considering Sameer is an Indian immigrant — and realizing they are in it for the long haul, they all find themselves creating a tentative friendship.
Soon it is yoga sessions for the women, shopping trips to Cabela’s for the men, and weekends at the Ohioans’ summer house where Heather and Jim dissuade Sameer and Madelyn from their idealized notions of parenthood. Jim teaches his sons to swim by tossing them in a pool — “learning looks like drowning sometimes” he sheepishly explains to a stunned Sameer — and Heather lovingly explains to a dejected Madelyn that compartmentalizing motherhood is not an option. Gun control supporter Sameer even goes hunting with card-carrying NRA member Jim — their scenes together are comedic gems. But when cracks develop over ideological differences, the couples’ idyl bumps up against hard reality.
Pfeffinger also offers cogent reasonings for each of the couple’s political views and while he keeps the couple’s sparring light, it gets heated in a pivotal scene exposing the characters’ stereotyped views of each other. Highlighting the couples’ differences is James Morris’ set design, with stage right representing the Red-state living room of Jim and Heather, where the 152 inch flat screen lives, and stage left the Blue-state abode of Sameer and Madelyn, with a prominent RBG print on the wall, and a bridge-like walkway upstage connecting the divergent spaces.
Director Joshua Bitton keeps things moving at a brisk pace and the actors are on point in their portrayals and comedic timing. Vaganos embodies the pent-up Madelyn with nervous tics and flailing ponytail while Talwalkar’s Sameer epitomizes the academic who is too scholarly for his own good. Lauren Burns’ Jesus-infused Heather is a benign presence for the most part but displays a steely side when the need arises. Kiel Kennedy’s square-jawed and muscled Jim may come off as dim, but he offers up a father’s wisdom that is surprisingly more open-minded than the caricature of a rightwinger — as long his kids do not root for the Wolverines!
Rogue Machine at the Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., W. Hollywood. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 3 pm; thru Sept. 1. https://www.roguemachinetheatre.org/ (Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.)
