The Happiest Medium Review by guest contributors Anjali Koppal and Saurabh Paranjape

In Chad Beckim’s frothy romantic comedy Cookie, it is hard not to cheer for mopey, instantly likable man-child Alan as he awkwardly navigates the unexpected pitfalls and redemptions of a hastily put-together ‘Green Card marriage’ scam. Told through a series of short and consistently entertaining vignettes, Cookie is a breezy story of unlikely love that also takes the occasional light-hearted jab at society’s unspoken racial stereotypes.

Opening in Alan’s threadbare New York apartment (Haven’t we all been there?), the play wastes little time setting up its protagonist and his predicament, and this initial momentum does not let up until the curtains fall. There is never a dull moment in Beckim’s writing.

Several scenes had the audience in peals of laughter – our favorite was Alan’s hilariously surreal dream sequence where he fantasizes about his new ‘wife’.  Moreover, the actors throw themselves wholeheartedly into their roles, investing each character with a quirky, genuine humanity. Top honors go to Vincent Madero as Alan, who perfects the ‘lovable-loser-in-his-30s’ act, and brings an awkward charm to his scenes with his new ‘wife’ Cookie. Yindy Vatanvan as the abrasive, fiercely independent Cookie has some fine moments, but suffers from poor character development, specifically the lack of a believable reason for her occasional, strangely aggressive behavior. Ryan Christopher Kim as Alan’s best friend Franklin and Cynthia Silver as his doting, over-protective and oh-so-slightly racist big sister Charlie offer able support, though their performances seems distinctly more affected and over-the-top compared to the central characters. However, in the end, the actors’ crackling chemistry and layered characterizations add much needed meat to an otherwise bare-bones plot.

The minimalist set design is surprisingly efficient at conveying the transformation of Alan’s apartment from a dishevelled bachelor pad to the orderly home of a domesticated adult, seemingly an allegory for Alan’s state of mind. Beckim’s direction is clean, confident, and decidedly conventional, though that’s not always a bad thing.

Cookie is definitely not a blindingly original idea (depending on your age, you may relate it to Andie MacDowell’s 1990 film ‘Green Card’ or Sandra Bullock’s 2009 rom-com ‘The Proposal’). Also, a misguided attempt at introducing unnecessary gravitas towards the end appears just a little too contrived. But these are minor missteps in what is ultimately a cohesive, witty, and wonderfully acted production that delivers a delightful hour and fifteen minutes of good humored entertainment.

~~~

Cookie
61 Academy in Association with Partial Comfort Productions
Writer: Chad Beckim
Director: Janet Bobcean

1h 15m
VENUE #9: The Robert Moss Theater

www.cookietheplay.com

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Anjali Koppal and Saurabh Paranjape are avid seekers of good stories, told through any medium. You can follow their reviewing escapades at tinseltownspeople.blogspot.com

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I hadn’t intended to see Ruby Wilder, but boy am I glad that I mistakenly stood in front of the wrong theatre for 20 minutes waiting for my show to begin; it gave me an opportunity to meet and chat with a terrific new talent –  Eric Hoff – who I hope I can interview in the future.  Turns out, missing my show was fortuitous because it led me right to the unique, eerie, funny, sleazy, rip-roaring world of Ruby Wilder.  And what a world that is.

Ruby Wilder (written by Brooke Allen and directed by Eric Hoff) starts with a bang . . . or the promise of one.  Soon enough though, more than you expected begins to happen – Ruby (Julie Cowden) could be a victim or she could be the victimizer, people in the room could be part of her life as it’s happening, figments of her dreams, or even elements of the story she’s piecing together – - a story which may or may not get to play out.  There’s even The Ghost of Sister Past – Junebug (Jennifer Incorvaia) who shimmies and twirls her way around the floor like a strung out tutu clad effigy of childhood lost.

This tightly directed story is a ballet of pain and of promise, and despite the inclusion of an ironic Narrator (Derek Czaplewski) who can’t be shushed aside, there’s no telling where this story will end up.

Coming at you from all sides emotionally, mentally and even physically, the story of Ruby Wilder can’t be told linearly and therefore it isn’t.   In Ruby’s  world the present interacts with the past by way of a metaphor and  the “ah ha” moments are so frequent that you lose count.

Ruby Wilder grabs you with “eerie”, then smacks you across the face with “funny” and does it all without sacrificing tone, plot, or story arc.  In my book, that’s just about as perfect as a show that comes in just over 1 hour can be.  In fact – although it’s compactly written and economically directed – the balance of humor, violence, pathos, humanity and rapture are so equal that there’s hardly a tremor as it swiftly skates from sadness to seductive to scary.

To even begin to explain the plot would be to give away too much – and this gal has already had too much taken from her.  This is her story to tell and I’ll be fair to her and let her deliver it to you.

But I will say this – spend one hour with this gal, her sister, her devoted, sweet, but ever-more-frustrated fiance Harper (Neal Starbird), and her mysterious stranger who can charm you and horrify you in the same moment (Josh Odor) and you’ll be haunted by her story for a long, long time.  With just one show left, clear your schedule and see for yourself how the story ends.

~~~

Ruby Wilder

Writer: Brooke Allen
Director: Eric Hoff

1h 10m
VENUE #9: The Robert Moss Theater
Click below to purchase tickets for the final show.

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It’s not every day that you get a marriage proposal, especially not after the 3rd date, but that’s exactly what’s happening to Vincent (John Fico) as the lights come up on Monica Bauer’s beautifully written one-man show, Made For Each Other (directed by John FitzGibbon).  Vincent, a 50ish man flips his cell phone shut and proceeds to give the audience hilarious snapshots of his life in zinging one liners, self deprecating anecdotes and breezy patter.  Between the laughs we can tell that Vincent is a man with a heart who’s hoping against hope that this isn’t all as crazy as it sounds.

From there we meet the other people who twine into Vincent’s life either directly or indirectly – all played by John Fico.  There’s Jerry, 40, the man who was on the other end of the phone who was eager to propose.  Jerry is the sweet, doting nurse who met Vincent in the nursing home where Vincent’s mother now resides, a victim of Alzheimer’s disease.  As Jerry rhapsodized to his therapist over this new man in his life we see Vincent through his eyes, and it’s a lovely picture – because we see Jerry as well.  Suddenly, the idea of proposing after the third date doesn’t seem so outlandish after all.

Grandpa Damiano – Jerry’s grandfather – also makes an appearance.  Although this man is technically dead we’re presented with his spirit, the one that watches over his grandson Jerry and spurs him forward, guiding him with whispers of what he should do.  The elder Damiano is a complex man . . . mired in the old-world ways we get a hazy snippet of how he wasn’t always welcomed in his family until much later in life when his constant stream of cigarettes finally caught up with him and his chronic emphysema forced him to move into his daughter’s home . . . and his grandson Jerry’s room.  It was in that room that an old Italian man with strict ideas about the world soften his heart to a boy who – anyone could see – was “a little different”.  To Grandpa Damiano, all that mattered was that this kid loved him, accepted him, and made his final years happy.

The last character we’re introduced to is Vincent’s mother who is, more and more, becoming a prisoner of her mind as her  Alzheimer’s progresses.  She has already (according to Jerry) gone over to what he and the other nurses refer to as the “OP” . . . the “Other Place” (although they don’t say this in front of the relatives of the patients).  The woman we meet, however, is vibrant, lively, and enthusiastic about life, if a little eccentric.  It’s only in-between the moments that she becomes scattered, losing her train of thought, word-associating in order to get her point across, and flitting around the stage as if she were in the French Riviera.  To see her go from marvelous to muddled in the span of five minutes is perturbing and terribly, terribly sad.  It is here where Bauer’s script is at it’s most powerful and where her talent for play-writing, not just witty repartee really comes through – to be able to make an audience hold their sides from laughter one moment and then struggle to hold back tears the next is no small feat.

Made for Each Other starts off as one story and slowly becomes another.  It also starts off solidly in the genre of comedy . . . almost a stand up act . . . and brings the lights down on a heartfelt drama.  Bauer has written four characters who are not just solid, but appealing – every time the light dims on one of them you’re sorry to see them go . . . but then you are delighted to see the next character unfolding before you.

Under John FitzGibbon’s direction,  Fico plays this story as if he were four distinct people, and at no point do you ever wonder who you’re looking at.  He has a gift of  using changes in his body language remarkably well – not just relying on vocal calisthenics or props to cue the audience.   Fico’s use of stance, tics, gestures and even habits give each character a uniqueness and to watch Fico transform from one to the other is a joy.

Made For Each Other is a  gift all around – to an actor, and to an audience.  Get to the final performance of this show this weekend if you can.  I guarantee that you’ll leave the theatre feeling like this show was Made For You.

~~~

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