I'll Be With You Shortly (review)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

Carrie (Alexis C. Martino) walks into an office, disoriented as the last thing she remembers is a car accident.  She rapidly figures out the most salient detail--she is dead.  What she doesn't know--her precise location now.  It looks like a reception room.  And a smiling lady (Rebecca O'Brien) who points her to a chair and says "Have a seat.  I'll be with you shortly."

So begins I'll Be With You Shortly by Michael Merton,  with the charming and appropriate tagline "Welcome to the Afterlife.  Take a number."

At this point you might have some idea of what kind of play-length sketch one might expect with this setup.  Most will be pleasantly surprised.  Because while Carrie has some time to wait--even after being told there is no Time--we do not remain with her.  Nor do we find out much about the rest of the Afterlife.  We learn a little.  Not much.  Mostly we get glimpses of what is still going on in this, the living world.  We meet a variety of interesting characters, about half of whom will be entering the same waiting room sooner rather than later.  Disease, murder, accident, and old age--they run the gamut of why.  Curiously, teh mystery that builds is why Carrie remains while everyone else is pointed to the escalators up or down.  She feels this unfair, very much so.  Even when the smiling lady points out the alternative to being here might be very, very unpleasant indeed.  Instead she's made to wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.

Carol Becker's direction feels spot on, as the gentle absurdity of everything manages to combine humor with some real pathos, some darkness, a bit of tragedy, some hope as well as some despair.  Frankly this play--which for the record is exactly my kind of jam--feels tricky.  But that is something which came to me later.  While watching and listening, taking in the moments offered by the cast and crew before me, I felt drawn in to every set of characters and each situation.  That is not easy.  But she and her people threaded those needles very well.

From a crazy old cat lady attempting to "fire" her son from being her son, to the straight guy at a gay wedding learning an important life lesson, the beleaguered but startlingly optimistic cop, and the hiring of a hit man which goes south in a borderline spectacular manner, the ensemble of Janet Hoskins, Debra Kay Lee, Jerry Weil, Jason Paul Evans, Patrick Thofson, Amanda Lynne, Alex De Rita, Nick Benson, Brittany De Leon, Andrea Sojo, Andrew Neaves, and Jessica Dowdeswell pull it all together into ninety minutes of laughs and sighs, of shocks plus a few grim thoughts here and there.  

For the record, the night I saw this show  Joan Kubicek went on, and I did not realize she was an understudy.  So brava!

I'll Be With You Shortly from the NeoEnsemble plays Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 8 p.m. until November  7, 2024 at The Loft Ensemble Theatre, 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood, CA 91602.

Disclaimer:  I know and am friends with several persons involved in this production.  

Demonic Housewives (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

As I write this Demonic Housewives has only three performances to go, barring a revival (which I would not dismiss out of hand).  Should you go see it?

Well, it depends on your taste.  Do you have a somewhat dark sense of humor?  Does a story of a small town secretly ruled by a cabal of satanist housewives sound like fun to  you?  What about a pair of goth girls trying to destroy an evil talisman?  Did you enjoy the t.v. show Monsters? Tales from the Dark Side? How about Tales from the Crypt?

Because that is the kind of show this is.  Silly, fun, oddly touching in a way, not taking itself too seriously.  It all takes place in the town of Hobsville ("Hob" is an ancient name for the devil), where Wanda (Lee Quarrie) tries to work some dangerous ritual magic and ends up a pile of ashes for her trouble.

Hey, I did warn  you about spoilers!  I did!

Credit: Adam Neubauer

We soon meet the rest of cast, staring with a trio of gossips named Lucille (Anne Westcott), Ethel (Aubry Manning) and Bertha (Suzie Heaton). In a way, the whole play is about three sets of three, each a center of some kind of power.

The satanic coven consists of the local preacher's wife Millicent (Redetha Deason), her dim friend Peggy (Beth Fisher) and new recruit--naive, unemployed teacher Kim (Monet Hendricks).  This latter has no idea what she's gotten into, nor how ruthless Millicent can be.

Finally there's an ersatz trio, of Wanda niece Darcy (Lara Fisher), the only member of the family who comes to settle the late occultist's things, with her in-your-face best friend RAE (Caitlin McCormick).  Later these two are joined by the ghost of Wanda, in efforts to somehow destroy a magic talisman that could release a horde of demons held captive.  Opposing them are Millicent's coven, who seek to help the demons escape!

Credit: Adam Neubauer

Amid all of this hilarity--and it is hilarity, taken with just about as much seriousness as the Ghostbusters--the show has a violinist (Elif Savas) and cellist (Jennifer Novak Chun) offering musical accompaniment to events.  Don't know if that was in Thomas J. Misuraca's script or emerged from director Sebastian Munoz' mind, but it works!

Now, as you've hopefully gathered from this review Demonic Housewives is an entertaining comedy poking fun at religion and some of the tropes of the horror genre, well-acted and generally performed with a lot of energy.  Well and good, because it is all that.  Let me add however it is also an intensely clever work, in many ways. For one thing, how refreshing to see a play on this subject entirely about women!  Consider the works of H.P.Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch and Richard Matheson when you ask why that might be refreshing. Second, there's an underlying wit to the the whole story--the intersecting triads of power for example, which is too pervasive to be anything but deliberate, and also the clever way the play's ending remains deliciously, ominously "open."  Tribute to the fact the best comedies are more than a string of punchlines strung together into something resembling a plot.  Here, the plot and characters themselves are part of the humor, not least because one can easily see this same story told "straight" as a horror movie (probably on Lifetime).

A fine inaugural show for Force of Nature Productions--a wonderfully crafted blend of humor and horror, written cleverly and performed with comedic skill.

Demonic Housewives plays Thursdays at 8pm and Sundays at 7pm until May 1, 2016 at the Archway Theatre, 10509 Burbank Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 9160.

Holiday Humor

May the season bring surprises of joy to you all...