Casa Valentina
Harvey Fierstein
 |
| The Cast of "Ladies" of "Casa Valentina" |
The tall, curly-headed twenty-something with boyish face is
greeted at the door of the bungalow inn by hostess Rita, “Grab a dish towel,
and make your dreams come true.” Later
her husband George adds, “Welcome to the best weekend of your life.” With tentative eagerness instilled in his
eyes, Jonathan steps into a 1962 magical haven in the heart of the Catskills
where men escape from wives and children, classrooms and students, courtrooms
and lawyers to find “the outward expression of the inner female” within
them. Based on a book by Michel Hurst
and Robert Swope (Casa Susanna), Casa Valentina is Harvey Fierstein’s
2014, Tony-nominated play about mostly heterosexual men who gathered on weekends
to dress and act in every way possible as normal, everyday women. With an age-and-size diverse cast that
transform from ordinary men into ordinary women right before our eyes, New
Conservatory Theatre Center presents the regional premiere of this fascinating
piece of American history.
Much of the delight of witnessing the fourteen hours
represented in Casa Valentina is to
watch a slice-of-life representation with only minimal sense of plot of these
men who seek not just to let their hair down but to put their hair, face, lace,
skirt and heels on in order to just relax with others like them. This is not a sex-filled weekend but a
weekend filled with cocktails, quips and gossip, stories about families back
home, and a little cabaret of their own with no headliner but the record
player. As a judge near retirement says
when he appears as the dignified, steady-voiced Amy (Tom Reilly), “At last I
can breathe again ... Hello, Amy ... I’ve missed you.”
 |
| Paul Rodrigues as George/Valentina |
The personality shifts are as dramatic as the outward appearances. Muscular, darkly handsome George (Paul
Rodrigues) is by all appearances a man’s man and woman’s dream. As co-proprietor of the inn, he hustles about
trying to help his wife Rita (Jennifer McGeorge) ready the inn for the
weekend. Already in his slip and
beginning to put on make-up, he grabs his wife and erotically draws her into
him. But then he turns to the mirror
requesting the wig she has readied for him.
“Right now, I need Valentina,” he whispers; and the transformation into
a beautiful, shapely woman with hip sways, hand flips, and head tosses is soon
complete. Gone is George, that half to
be forgotten until the new week’s dawn.
The mixture of women who appear from their bedrooms for the
first evening’s drinks and meal is not unlike what one might remember from a
mother’s weekly bridge party in small town America. Besides sexy Valentina and matronly Amy,
there is the dowdy, elderly Terry (aka Theodore, played by Michael Moerman) who
sputters in her gravely voice but still shows sparks of devilishness when given
a chance to cut a gentle rug in barefoot on the dance floor with one of the
younger “ladies.” Gloria, who arrived
as Michael (and played by Tim Huls), brings a Spanish flair and sassiness to
her hidden persona and a dimpled smile that works well for both halves.
 |
| Max Hersey, Ready for Make-Over into Miranda |
When Jonathan finally appears as Miranda, Max Hersey excels
in creating a caterpillar emerging slowly as a wrinkled butterfly trying to
stand on its wobbly, new legs. With a
wig that looks more like a mop and in a dress that hangs loosely with no shape
or style to mention, he flops across the floor in his purple, glistening
heels. But all the other ‘girls’ rush to
hold him up and to make him over, resulting in a butterfly with new breasts,
new hips, new curls, and totally new confidence as a Miranda who has finally
come home.
 |
| Jeffrey Hoffman as "Bessie" |
In any group of friends, there is often that one standout
who is the biggest tease, wit, and grabber of the group’s attention whenever
the slightest opportunity avails herself.
Such is the oh-so-Southern Bessie, “short for Alberta and worlds away
from Albert” -- the last name being the other world husband and father left far
behind when Bessie comes to the Catskills.
Jeffrey Hoffman is the knockout star of the show, not only because of
the totally funny and big-hearted persona he creates for Bessie, but also
because Harvey Fierstein has provided him with the best lines time and
again. (One could totally imagine Harvey
himself playing Bessie.) Pleasingly
plump Bessie announces her entrance to dinner with, “I’m so pretty, I should be
set to music.” When told by sweet
Miranda/Jonathan how nice she is, Bessie retorts, “I’m not pretty, young, or
rich ... Kind is all I got.” In the
midst of a conversation about sending something back in the mail, she quips, “I
once had a male form ... I filled it out and sent it back.” And voicing what probably everyone in the
room (minus Rita, at least) feels deep down, Bessie sighs, “I am my own perfect
spouse.”
 |
| Paul Rodrigues & Jennifer McGeorge |
Greeting each with hugs, aiding with hair fixes, and joining
in as a fellow girlfriend is Rita, George’s wife. At one point after helping in Jonathan’s
make-over, she pleads, “Someone fetch me a drink ... I’m exhausted ... I’ve made dinner and a woman.” Jennifer McGeorge gives an award-worthy
performance as she walks the tight-wire between being totally supportive of her
husband’s cross-dressing and her own increasing doubts of “you’d be better off
without me maybe.”
Into this weekend of girlfriend time-out from the world of
living as males enters the play’s drama. The ingredients for disruption include an inn about
to go bankrupt, a brown envelope of XXX-rated photos mailed to George and
discovered by postal officials, and a nationally known transvestite who is
willing to do whatever it takes to force this shadow group in the Catskills to
step into the spotlight and join her newly certified, national nonprofit
sorority of male cross-dressers. Matt
Weimer as Charlotte brings a body build often politely noted as “big boned” and
a look where every hair is in sprayed stiffly in place. She also brings a stuffy sophistication that
both wants to be one of the girls but also is clear that she is probably better
and smarter than the others. “Not to
toot me own horn, there is a Christ-like element to my journey,” she declares
as she describes her movement to out transvestites as something not to be
shunned but admired. But in her world,
transvestites in this so-called sorority must be heterosexuals only, not
homosexuals who are “the back-ally vermin of society.”
Becca Wolff directs this group of cross-dressers with humor
and heart, fully utilizing the compact nooks and crannies, doorways and corners
of Kua-Hao Lo’s bungalow stage design.
Keri Fitch has stitched together an incredible array of personality-defining
male and female outfits that speak to the era of Jackie Kennedy and to what one
might have found at that time at the local Goodwill Center. David Carver-Ford’s wigs and Ting Na Wang’s
properties fill in all the right ways to make these girls come to full
life. And the background music designed
by James Ard deserves its own soundtrack CD as a compilation of an entire array
of the early 1960s easy listening, nightclub, and bachelor pad music.
Where the evening falters has little-to-nothing to do with
NCTC’s cast or production. Harvey
Fierstein’s mostly brilliant script at times becomes too much like a lecture to
the point of even being a bit preachy.
At those points when one character goes on and on making a case for or
against tolerance of cross-dressing, of allowing/not allowing homosexuals into
their company, or of offering a commentary of the movement that is in the
making right before our eyes, the action slows, the energy decreases, and
audience attention seems to wane.
That being said, there is so much to like in New Conservatory
Theatre Center’s engrossing, entertaining, and enlightening production of Casa Valentina. This is history that deserves to be told; and
to be told well, it needs to be seen in the manner NCTC does so well.
Rating: 4 E
Casa Valentina
continues through November 6, 2017 on the Decker stage of New Conservatory
Theatre Center, 25 Van
Ness Avenue at Market Street, San Francisco.
Tickets are available online at http://www.nctcsf.org or by calling the box office at
415-861-8972.
Photo
by Lois Tema
No comments:
Post a Comment