Jonathan Miller and Jeff Sable (photo by Sej Patel/Steven Feldshundneff)
Reviewed by Steven Leigh Morris
Ophelia’s Jump
Through June 28
Chelsea Carcoza and and Jacob Wilson (Photo by Sej Patel/Steven Feldshundneff)
What happens when commercial pressures bear down on a small theater in an Upland Mall? Production costs are soaring, corporate, foundation and government grants are dribbling away, and a theater that was at least partly committed to the presentation of new works, however problematic and intriguing they may have been, now dedicates its main stage entirely to reconfiguring Broadway hits of yore. (Note, the company, Ophelia’s Jump, is rebuilding its current dressing room into a tiny cabaret/second space for workshops of new plays.)
What happens under such circumstances is a perfectly capable and at times inspired production of Matthew Lopez’s 2015 drag show comedy, The Legend of Georgia McBride, born at the Manhattan Theatre Club only to be elevated to Broadway and flung around among a cluster of regional theaters across the country. At Ophelia’s Jump, Caitlin Lopez’s staging is awfully good, thanks to a solid ensemble; to Beatrice Casagrán’s more than serviceable set and delightful costumes; and to Krys Fehervari’s wigs.
Despite its witty and sometimes smutty repartee, the play is a tired and facile throwback that relentlessly avoids actually grappling with some of the potent issues of gender and bigotry that it raises. In 2015, it may have had some legs, wrapped in garters and stockings and worn by men — but even then, it borrowed almost shamelessly from the premise in Sydney Pollack’s 1982 flick, Tootsie, starring Dustin Hoffman.
A young married guy, Casey (the amiable Jacob Wilson), about to become a father, works as an Elvis impersonator at a local comedy club in Panama City, Florida. Casey is soon to discover from the club owner (Jeff Sable) that, due to audiences in the single digits, he’s about to be canned. Casey’s waitress wife Jo (a dynamic performance by Chelsea Caracoza) is the family’s primary breadwinner. As it is, they can’t make ends meet, having bounced rent checks three months in succession; they’re now staring down eviction. Their landlord, Jason (Gabriel Reign Raphael, who doubles more effectively as a dedicated, aggrieved drag performer at the club), oozes faux empathy, but business is business. Such is as true at a fictional comedy club in Florida as it is in a very real theater in Upland. Every club needs to present what sells, if the doors are to remain open.
Into the club march drag queens Miss Tracy Mills (Jonathan Miller) and Rexy (Raphael) with the promise of saving the club by transforming it from a haven for celeb impersonators to drag shows – the only constant being lip synching. On a boozy bender, Rexy is unable to perform, and in a harried transformation, Casey, otherwise on his way to the role of bartender or out the door, gets pressure-recruited by Miss Tracy to don a dress, padding, wig and makeup, and to create the drag persona Georgia McBride.
There are two issues at play: First, Casey won’t tell his wife what he’s doing, thus raising questions of fidelity. He actually lies about it, saying to her that he’s now impersonating a heavy metal rocker; Second, Casey grows into the role of Georgia McBride and makes great tips, slowly recognizing that his true self may be more feminine than he ever realized. An inevitable confrontation ensues, when very pregnant Jo shows up to see her husband in a dress, wig and thick mascara. Is his literal duplicity going to cost him his marriage? Her main issue is his lying.
And yet, in the blink of an eye, she has not only forgiven him — she’s an active backstage participant in Casey’s show. Everyone forgives, because that kind of happy, sappy ending sells tickets. Unexplored, in a play worthy of such exploration, is any self-loathing, defiance and ultimate confidence that would accompany such a transformation from male to female. He just figures that deep down, he’s a she, and the deal is done. He explains this to his wife, and there, too, the deal is done. Because she loves him so, so much. Right.
They say F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover used to don drag in private, while attacking gays in public. The closeted master sadist, attorney Roy Cohn, whose prosecution put Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death in the electric chair for their alleged communist sympathies (Cohn was Hoover’s chief counsel) similarly participated in anti-Gay crusades. He died of AIDS.
Rexy gives a quasi-heroic speech about the legacy of the gay-rights struggle, invoking the Stonewall riots, but nowhere does this play actually grapple with any potential homophobia on the part of Casey, Jo, or anybody else. Everyone is just accepting of who they are, as though we’re living on Mars, or some narrow quadrant of San Francisco or WeHo. The play turns on the single joke of a straight guy who enjoys donning a dress and is then discovered by his wife. It just feels cheesy, because the resolution (that love conquers all) is such a dishonest reflection of the larger world we all occupy. Jo’s truth is that, with newborn twins, she’s trapped. That entrapment, too, goes unexplored.
That said, Miller’s performance as Miss Tracy Mills defies all the cliches built into the drag queen role. Miller’s understatement is next to brilliant. He doesn’t push Tracy’s tart comebacks; rather, they slip out, unforced and entrancingly subtle. Nor does he gesticulate in a way that underscores the sassy queen. He is simply there, a she-presence, unadulterated and true.
Ophelia’s Jump, 2009 Porterfield Way, Suite I, Upland; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 4 pm; thru June 28. https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=311157 Running time: two hours and 40 minutes, including intermission
