Log in Subscribe

Theater Review: FSU/Asolo Conservatory's The Drunken City

Posted
SARASOTA – The FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training opened its third production of the 2016/17 season on Wednesday night, Adam Bock's comedy, The Drunken City. A trio of engaged young ladies from the suburbs set out to celebrate a bachelorette party, but the tipsy bride-to-be begins having second thoughts when she hits it off with a drunken stranger on the streets of The City.

Marnie (Mary Ellen Everett) is obviously having second thoughts toward a union that seems to be more a response to the pressure of getting married than any sort of meaningful end. Her best friends, Melissa (Kendran Spencer) and Linda (Colleen Lafeber), are fiercely protective of her, though for reasons that seem to have more to do with their own insecurities than genuine concern.

When the three inebriated young ladies hit the streets after a night of clubbing, they immediately run into Frank and Eddie, who appear to be equally soused. Within moments, Marnie and Frank (Nolan Fitzgerald Hennelly) are kissing in the middle of the street. The friends freak out, the new lovers get lost, and most of the play is spent keeping up with the drunken pursuit, while Marnie comes to the conclusion that she must call off the wedding.

While there is some fine acting in this production, it suffers from a fatal flaw, namely that the play itself just isn't very good. The Conservatory rarely misses with its play selections, but The Drunken City seems little more than whimsical fodder with less depth than a typical episode of Sex in the City. A night of theater must offer the audience more than they might receive channel surfing or grabbing something from Redbox on the way home, and Bock's play simply fails to deliver.

Most audience members will be able to relate to the societal pressures at the center of the story, but there’s simply no one to root for and very little in the way of resolution. It turns out that watching a handful of drunken 20 somethings waxing philosophical on stage is no more fun than doing so in real life. In fact, the two most endearing characters in the play are its most minor: Frank's gay friend Eddie (played very well by Christopher Carlson) and the girls' gay friend Bob (also played to the nines by Anthony J. Hamilton), who owns the bakery they work at. The potential of romance between the two that arises at the end is perhaps the only thing close to a happy ending one might find.
 
Kedren Spencer, Colleen Lafeber, Mary Ellen Everett, Nolan Fitzgerald Hennell and Christopher Carlson. Photo by Frank Atura.
 
Aside from the annoyance of listening to (rather convincing) drunken chatter through about 90 percent of the play, there are also some very odd devices employed, including something that at first seemed to be an earthquake (is The City San Francisco or LA?) but then seemed perhaps to represent some sort of cosmic seismic shifting that would occur each time Frank and Marnie gave into temptation and returned to sucking face.
 
Then Lafeber, a tall and striking actress who does very well with what she's given, has to suffer through a genuinely-odd lone musical number that is inexplicably stuffed in near the end of the production. She's singing? Where's everyone else? Wait, why is she singing? Spencer gives a powerful turn as Melissa, a particularly-annoying character whom she likewise manages to make the most of in a performance that suggests considerable talent.

Director Jesse Jou, whose work was last seen on the FSU/Asolo Conservatory stage in 2014 with the excellent production of How I Learned to Drive, manages to get a tight, well-paced performance out of a talented cast, but there's simply no way to rescue The Drunken City from its own shortcomings. It runs through Sunday, March 12 in the Cook Theatre. Visit the Asolo website for more information.
 

Anthony J. Hamilton and Mary Ellen Everett. Photo by Frank Atura
 
 

Comments

No comments on this item

Only paid subscribers can comment
Please log in to comment by clicking here.