Traveling Lemur Productions
Evan Koepnick and Shannon Nettesheim in BACHELORETTE with Theater RED
Leslye Headland’s dark contemporary comedy Bachelorette doesn’t deserve the cast that Theater RED has assembled for it. The comedy about a group of people meeting on the evening before a wedding is not without its tender intricacy and intimacy, but the script doesn’t have half the depth it seems capable of.
The walk into the Alchemist Theatre locks-in a bit of the feel of a pre-wedding function. There’s a place to write well-wishes to the couple. There’s a drawing for prizes. There are party favors available. There are fancy cupcakes. Walk through the bar and into the theater space and you’re in a snuggly, little studio theatre made out to look like an upscale hotel suite. As the audience, the actors react to us like we’re Central Park--a beautiful space that might be populated by homeless people.
The opens with a couple of women arriving. Katie wants to get a little crazy with the cocaine. Gena wants her to pace herself. Headland has kind of a vacuous entry into the comedy. I guess she’s going for the contrast of a couple of low-class people in a classy hotel or something. Thankfully, director Mark Boergers doesn’t play it like that. Liz Faraglia plays it stern and responsible as Gena. She’s got a remarkably pulled-together presence onstage. This character has been through hell and survived through her own scrappiness. It’s very cool that Faraglia is capable of bringing this across with very little in the script to lend her gravity.
Shannon Nettesheim brings an interesting emotional texture to the role of faded former prom queen Katie. The script could play her like the tired archetype of someone who peaked in high school and has been in a rut ever since. Nettesheim plays the character with a charmingly oblivious fragility. The script could make her seem like an idiot party girl with unexpected depth leaking out in the events of the comedy, but Nettesheim does something much more savvy with it. Nettesheim’s Katie seems really sophisticated--she’s a shadow looking to find the light that’s forming her. It’s an interesting performance.
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Time passes and we meet Regan. On the surface, she’s more of a success than Katie or Gena. She works in a hospital for children with cancer. She’s standing-up in the wedding. The suite is her responsibility. There’s something altogether darker in her personality that lurks below the surface. Tess Cinpinski is suitably powerful in the role, which might be the single most intricate in the entire ensemble. Headland seems to have fused much of the complexity of the plot into the heart of Regan. Cinpiski handles it remarkably well. She has a very savvy grasp of the character’s emotional intricacy.
Evan Koepnick and Nick Narcisi play Joe and Jeff. They’re a couple of guys who have come to hang out with Regan and Katie. Narcisi is given a kind of a tedious role to play. He’s a bright guy who is there to get laid. Solve the puzzle. Work out the issues with one of the women and you get to have sex. There’s not much there, but Narcisi plays it with charm.
This is the single best performance I can ever remember Koepnick delivering to the stage. He’s kind of a burnt-out guy. One gets the impression that she’s seen just as much hell as Gena, but it has left him with a more empathic and sympathetic perspective on the world. Koepnick glows with emotional warmth in the role. He gets paired-up with Katie and the emotional gravity onstage is almost irresistible. Koepnick and Nettesheim have a really fascinating dynamic together as Joe and Katie. These are two characters who want the same kind of connection but seem to be going about it in entirely different ways. I could have watched Koepnick and Nettesheim in a 90-minute play as these two characters.
Kelly Doherty rounds-out the cast as the bride-to-be. She isn’t given much time to make an appearance, establish a persona and then close-out the drama with a deep, personal transformation. This is a challenge you don’t want any actor to have to face. If anyone can manage a challenge like this, it’s Doherty, who does a very, very sharp job of delivering exactly what she needs to deliver. It’s a very precise performance with every single line being delivered with careful attention to mood. Her performance lends the perfect balance to an already great ensemble.
Theater RED’s production of Bachelorette runs through Mar. 19 at the Alchemist Theatre on 2569 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. For ticket reservations, visit Theater RED online.
