If you judge a play by its title and think the new production of Becky Shaw at Actor’s Express is just a chick play, well you’d be so wrong. And may miss one of the best plays I’ve seen in a long time.
Yes, there is a woman named Becky Shaw in the play, and yes, she’s a single woman set up on a blind date. But she doesn’t even show up until the second act and the date is just a catalyst for the madness, mayhem and miscommunications that revolve around four other characters.
The play, which was a finalist for a Pulitzer in 2009, was written by Gina Gionfriddo, who has also written for “Law and Order.” And while there is no murder in this one, there is plenty of intelligent, witty dialog and situations that aren’t always so clear.
I’m not going to talk about the plot much. For the same reason I’ve given up reading book jackets. I enjoy finding out what is going to happen rather than reading about it beforehand and some of the enjoyment for me is not knowing what is going to happen. Like the believable movie “The Hangover,” where we follow along as the characters find out what they did the night before. (Did it bother anyone else that they never explained the chicken?)
But I’ll sum up the relationships between the five characters in
Becky Shaw in two words borrowed from Facebook and a popular movie: It’s complicated.
As is often the case, much of the humor arises from these complications. And a lot of it also comes from characters expressing things we wish we could say, but would never have the nerve, particularly from the sarcastic and sardonic Max. At least I wouldn’t. Maybe that is why I seemed to be laughing at just about every line.
The play is very funny. Here are just a few lines from it. When rich money manager Max finds out his blind date doesn’t have a cell phone, he says, “Is my date Amish? … Fifty bucks says she thinks 401k is a band.” Read the full post »
