Love! Valour! Compassion!

Playwright Terrence McNally’s Love! Valour! Compassion! spans one summer in the lives of eight gay men, but its depth of emotion and breadth of content makes the play, and this Who Wants Cake? production, feel more like an entire life, lived in the fortunate company of close friends. The world of the play, nineteen-ninety-something in upstate New York, is inconsequential but for faint cultural time stamps and understated New England–nautical fashion influences (by costume designer and choreographer Ben Stange). The summer lake house of Gregory (Keith Allan Kalinowski) and Bobby (Matthew Turner Shelton) is the getaway of choice for a passel of longtime friends and associates: Perry (Richard Payton) and Arthur (John Nowaczyk), who have been together more than a decade; John (Charles VanHoose), with his latest young plaything, Ramon (Vince Kelley), in tow; and Buzz (Joe Plambeck), whose adoration of long-ago Broadway musicals and their leading ladies would be a cliché but for how genuine it is. Spanning the duration of the summer, Memorial Day to Independence Day to Labor Day, the play’s three acts are relatively devoid of dramatic conflict. The men disagree, of course, and confront each other at times; however, the only really palpable danger is from outside influences, the kind with which any adult can relate.

The fear of aging and lost youthful creativity is presented to Gregory, a famous dancer and choreographer seeing the beginning of the end of his career, both in his encroaching physical limitations and in the perceived threat of up-and-comer Ramon. Romantic couplings and fidelity are embarked upon and violated and worked through with difficulty; even Perry and Arthur reflect on past indiscretions. Coping with illness and death is also present: here, AIDS makes Buzz’s vivaciousness feel downright defiant and brings John’s brother to the house in rapidly failing health. The prevalence of and attitudes toward AIDS speak to the unique perspective of a 1990s exclusively gay cohort, and the comfortably frank and close-knit network of who’s slept with whom might feel unfamiliar to some viewers, but the emotions behind these connections are universal; overall, the show is a fair and fond look at people weathering life — and doing it together.

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Mercury Fur

Darkness and danger shroud the vexing Mercury Fur, the controversial Philip Ridley play. Still, no one can say that boundary-shoving Who Wants Cake? didn’t know what it was getting into with this production: its promotional materials point to the many patrons who have walked out on other productions, brandishing the fact like a medal. In this staging, director Joe Plambeck shows particular skill at heightening the shock factor by bolstering the show’s emotional core. The result is a play with the potential to turn stomachs and to wither hearts.

The cryptic plot is learn-as-you-go. Brothers Elliot (Jon Ager) and Darren (Nico Ager) break into an empty apartment of a condemned building, at first lit only by their flashlights, and deem it an acceptable locale for the night’s party. Between the content warnings displayed on the theater’s walls and programs and the surroundings, it’s clear whatever they mean by “party” is more nefarious than balloons and cake, but the specifics are unraveled by miniscule degrees only as the other players begin to arrive. The play’s uninterrupted two hours unfold in real time on a wave of maniacal energy, frequently driven by Elliot. With the party bumped up on the schedule by several days, there’s barely time to get ready, and many of the interactions are fueled with getting the preparations on track: cleaning the apartment (a fine wreck of a set by Katie Orwig); collecting the Party Piece (Scott Wilding), some kind of human accessory, to be dressed by the transsexual Lola (Vince Kelley); directing fellow squatter and hanger-on Naz (Alex D. Hill) to perform various grunt functions; and convincing the fearsome ringleader Spinx (Patrick O’Connor Cronin) that everything is proceeding according to plan. Often bickering, always moving, the characters insult each other using strings of unrelated racial slurs; they are all fountains of invective, but little more could be expected from such a band of droogs.

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Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy

The 1980s were such magical times, with pop fads to spare and frightening, untrustworthy, Medusa-like woman creatures grabbing for and holding power in the workplace like never before. Ancient Greece was also probably magical. Playwrights Alana McNair and Kate Wilkinson prove these are two great tastes that taste great together in Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy, the inaugural production of Who Wants Cake? now returning to celebrate a full run at the Ringwald four years later. Directed by and starring Joe Bailey, the current offering skirts the line between straight-faced parody and cheeky, winking camp that keeps the laughs rolling.

Most people know the basic story of the bunny-boiler film upon which the play is based: a man has a brief fling that comes back to haunt him in the most nefarious of ways. The play doesn’t bother with movie character names, instead identifying the players as we know them best: suave protagonist Michael Douglas (Jon Ager), cloying wife Anne Archer (Melissa Beckwith), child most gently described as homely and slow Ellen Hamilton Latzen (Tim Kay), and indomitable home-wrecking force of nature Glenn Close (Bailey). Also contributing to the proceedings is a Greek chorus of four (Suzan M. Jacokes, Richard Payton, Joe Plambeck, and Dyan Bailey) whose heavy-handed intoning damns the man who steps out on his wife and family. Skipping ahead to the most memorable scenes and crucial plot points, the play smartly flies by at eighty minutes, just enough to satisfy without wearying of its premise. From the meteoric career rise of the protagonist that cannot go unpunished to the bloody bathtub showdown, the play works as both a rough-and-tumble spoof of the film and as a goof on the implausible, severe cautionary tales of Greek tragedy.

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The House of Blue Leaves

There's a show before the show in playwright John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves; for this Who Wants Cake? production, director Joe Bailey cleverly stashes it in the corner and gives it all the excitement of a preflight safety presentation. Whatever, guy, the atmosphere deadpans, as a flop-sweaty fellow plays piano with his fingers, sings with his mouth, and begs for adulation with every other molecule of his being. Instead, most of the Ringwald's listening audience — quite possibly the entire universe — is rolling its collective eyes at Artie Shaughnessy.

Played by Dave Davies, Artie is a zookeeper by day and a middling songwriter by night. Energized by his new lady love, the headstrong Bunny (Melissa Beckwith), he finally feels ready to take on the entertainment world with a handful of ditties and a dream (oh, and a lifelong tie to the biggest director in the film industry). Artie holds his Hollywood future with Bunny in front of him like a gem, but below the surface there is an undercurrent of feet-dragging, the source of which is Bananas (Lisa Jesswein), Artie's mentally ill wife. Given the play's 1965 setting, her treatment is inherently troubling: Artie force-feeds her pills whenever she emotes more than a groggy stupor, and Bunny talks about her like a piece of furniture even when she's in the room. But the primary strength of this production is in its veering tones; from a paper-thin blossoming infatuation set to music, to Looney Tunes–worthy chase scenes, to a vast sounding board of pathos, Bailey and company shift between and bleed together the disparate parts of a bleakly dark yet shimmering comedy.

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F$$$ the Holidays

Who in the world gives a gallon of semi-gloss as a Christmas gift? From the outset, it's a surreal existence in Sweetlove Productions' so-called "seasonal retail story" F$$$ the Holidays, produced in partnership with the Ringwald and directed by Joe Plambeck. This one-act late-night production, written by Marke Sobolewski and Cara Trautman, is an unlikely tale of rival paint stores and their respective offbeat employees; the small story is a good fit for the short running time and leaves room for comedic character development and hilarious moments.

Trautman plays Kirsten, a frontrunner in the rat race who manages one franchise of a paint conglomerate; Sobolewski's Jeremy is the heir to his father's small-town family paint store. Their conflict plays on themes of corporate versus small business and new- versus old-school marketing, but mostly the two seem to revile each other because one lives to sell paint and the other ought to. Christmas approaches at each location, but the stores themselves don't appear to be jeopardized or locked in any do-or-die competition; the attention in this show is on the personal and interpersonal, not on holiday shoppers or the bottom line.

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