Snippitts of Illusions

Bob Juan Casanova.

This past weekend I took the opportunity to journey to Salt Lake to see some friends and take in some theater. I had two close friends both doing shows and another individual I like and respect doing one as well. Part of me going on this venture was to take in a lot of theater, and that I managed to do. I saw three plays in two days time and I intend to write a short review for each.

Now I love the theater, particularly when it's something I've never seen and never heard of. The opportunity to watch something that's new or original is something I hate to pass up. Living in a virtual desert of theater, nearly anything that has come out in the theater world the last ten years is new or original to me. Even in the last 15 years I'll only have heard of the big stuff. So an original work by a local playwright is an opportunity not to be passed up.

I don't get out to see many shows, and there are local playwrights releasing productions a few times each year through the various theater companies through out the valley. I miss a lot of these, but time and money concerns are different now and I can actually take the opportunities to attend them more often now than I have in the past.

Bob Juan Cassanova, an original work by Robert Easton, directed by JC Carter and produced by ATG Theater company had a short run earlier this month at the Midvale Main Street theater. It featured JayC Stoddard in the title role of Bob, Rachyl Bonnell as Cute Girl in Audience, Jennifer Hamilton as Bianca, with Lindsay Marriott and Alice Gonzalez portraying a bevy of roles each.

Bob Juan opens with Bob out on a date with a lovely young woman. The action pauses as Bob addresses the audience and bemoans his loveless love life. He then flashes back to his first and most importantly truest love, that of Bianca. While waxing poetic for Bianca, and lamenting that one of the actors didn't show up for the show he jokingly calls for any actors in the theater, Cute Girl in the Audience volunteers to fill in and remains something of a fixture through out the rest of the performance. Bob weaves a tale of a exciting and disappointing escapades in the world of love for the audience. While Bianca is a repeated bust as far as his love life goes he has encounters with married women, high school seniors, actresses and beautiful Puerto Rican's in libraries plus a bevy of one date let downs that only leave him more and more jaded about life. Lending a sympathetic ear through out, Cute Girl in the Audience finally gives Bob hope in the end as they are apparently together, though the audience is left to wonder if this will be perhaps another one of his short encounters.

JayC Stoddard does a great job as Bob and handles the lengthy monologues and soliloquies with surprising ease. He also carries a constant up beat energy that the play needs to move forward. Alice Gonzalez also does a great job, bringing a strong presence to the stage in all the scenes she's in. Rachyl Bonnell is a sincere actress, but come off being a bit nervous on stage. I'm not sure if this was a character choice or not but it certainly didn't read that way. Both Jennifer Hamilton and Lindsay Marriott handled their parts well, Ms Marriott especially so, keeping each character distinct through out.

Unfortunately despite the good performances the script is lacking. It's not all bad, the monologues are handled quite well, but the dialogue between the characters is rough in many spots and a lot of the women's dialogue needs a bit of work. The biggest problem with the play is that it just doesn't go any where either in character development or plot. The play starts with Bob in a static state in his love life, and while it gives us a hint that things may be looking up, the audience can't know if this is going to be another one of Bob's failures or not. It seems like it might be as I got the impression that Cute Girl in Audience was only interested in Bob because she felt sorry for him. The character comes across as very likable during the performance, but he doesn't seem to learn anything from each new encounter to the next. This is really too bad, this is a play that most of us can identify with, we've all been unlucky in love, I myself could 100% relate to the main character through out much of the piece, but it doesn't do anything with that idea.

This is rare as I can give some thoughts to the playwright and suggestions for any possible rewrites that he may have in development and he may actually see suggestions. All of which are subjective of course. I've put a considerable amount of thought into each of these:
I don't know how much is based off of fact in the play, but my first suggestion is to trim the number of women. Bianca is great, you need to keep her as she does fit the theme of unrequited love and can fill that niche through out most of the play. Focus on two more significant encounters: the married woman, the actress, the high school senior these are all optimum scenarios as they provide the most interesting instances for possible conflict. As the play stands now there's a lot of women, many of whom were not that interesting when compared to the potential drama of others. Narrowing the focus to 3 or so significant lovers will help us connect with Bob even more. Making them significantly thematic also helps a great deal. The affair with the married woman that has the potential to be intensely dramatic and the near dream like quality of dating the actress are all wonderful things to play with especially if the narrative of unrequited love for Bianca is touched upon several times through out the play as it currently is.
The next significant suggestion is to make Bob solely a character and not the narrator, give it to the Cute Girl in the Audience. She ends up with Bob at the end, and she can see who he's become. This can be her relating the story of how she come to be with this great guy and how his unlucky though quirky love life led him to her. Making somebody else the narrator will allow Bob to grow as a character. The play as it's currently written is told as flashbacks with some audience interaction, Bob starts and stops in the same place narratively because he is the narrator and really has no place to go. We don't really see his arc, he's in the present and that doesn't allow us to see his arc. Placing somebody else as the narrator will allow us to watch Bob grow as a character and likely sympathize with him more.
The last thing would be to add a few characters. This doesn't mean adding more romantic encounters, but by adding another actor to fill in parts of the high-school buddy, the jealous husband, or even the quirky but understanding best friend you can show these things in the narrative. How did the jealous husband react? How understanding was the best friend when Bob lost Bianca again? A lot of the play is Bob telling us about one encounter or another. Yes some of the significant events of his love life are shown, but often times the lead up or the aftermath of each of those encounters is told back to us through a monologue by Bob. This is disappointing as an audience member. I want taut, intense drama during these scenes, not to be told how horrible things ended up.

Now, even though I have criticized the script at length, I didn't hate the play. Yes it has issues, no play is perfect and like the actors, the playwright can come away from this with a positive experience and the knowledge of where to go from here. The strength of the play is in it's potential. There's some good stuff here and the play itself was fun to watch. I can't wait to see (hopefully) where it goes from here.

Labels: Theater Reviews

posted by F.G. Shaw @ 5:12 PM