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Reviews
GETTING IT
CAST:
Jay Rogers, Karen Case Cook, Mitch Maguire, Katherine Dillingham
AUTHOR & DIRECTOR:
Kevin Jones
SETS:
Kermit Medsker
COSTUMES:
B.J. Fisher
STAGE MANAGER:
Kelly Varley
Getting It is a new play written and directed by Kevin Jones that is being presented as part of the 2nd annual Fresh Fruit Festival. The play follows two couples--one married and about to have a baby, the other married and wishing they could have one--as they get caught in a gender-bending love trapezoid that ponders marriage, infidelity, and plastic surgery.
NyTheatre.com Review
Amy Rhodes · July 21, 2004
Kevin Jones’ new play, Getting It, has the ingredients of a racy, door-slamming comedy: love, surprise twists, gender bending, infidelity, and deceit.
Getting It follows Ricky and Beth, a well-to-do, middle-aged couple about to have a baby. When they invite young newlyweds Sandy and George to their Manhattan penthouse for dinner, it is with the intention of seducing them. Beth is able to attract George’s attention and, a few days later, the two begin having an affair. However, things aren’t exactly what they seem in Ricky and Beth’s household and, as the arrival of their baby draws closer, it gets harder for them to keep their secrets.
As a writer, Jones creates witty dialogue that yields a lot of solid laughs throughout the show. The show’s big twist is clever and there are subtle clues that don’t give it away but build nicely to the reveal.
Jones’ direction is a little uneven. He makes good use of Kermit Medsker’s living room set, which includes three doors that are used perfectly for hiding behind and unexpected entrances. The physical bits in the show could yield big laughs.
Both Jay Rogers and Karen Case Cook as Ricky and Beth do a wonderful job of playing the absurd humor of the situation without going over the top. Katherine Dillingham and Mitch Maguire are likeable as the naive young couple.
Getting It has fun moments and there is room for it to grow into a full-blown comedy buffet. Perhaps it needs to simmer a little longer to really get cookin’.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
THEATRE: Wings Theatre July 20, 2004 - August 7, 2004
CAST: Robert Abid, Kurt Alger, Josh Berresford, Claysey Everett, Katharine Heller, Joel M. Peterson, Erick C. Thorsen
AUTHOR & DIRECTOR: Jeff Bedillion
SETS: Christian Motta
LIGHTING: Anna Peterson
COSTUMES: Lynn Wheeler
SOUND & STAGE MANAGER: Annie Burns
MUSIC: Ethan Hein
CHOREOGRAPHER: Kurt Alger
PERCUSSIONIST: James Borcher
PRODUCING COMPANY LMNO: Theatre Company
NyTheatre.com Review
Martin Denton · July 21, 2004
Forbidden Fruit is a play by Jeff Bedillion, who describes it this way: "It's set in an abstract Garden of Eden--the Midwest. It's the love story of two men, basically the history of the two men before they met each other." It's a two-part coming-of-age love story; first, about a guy, a girl, and the object of their affection; and second, about a guy and his struggle to reconcile his faith with his budding sexuality, and the somewhat overbearing attention of his conservative mother. Forbidden Fruit is an expanded version of a one-act play that was seen last year at the Fresh Fruit Festival. The production contains a small amount of full-frontal male nudity.
I did not see the one-act version of Forbidden Fruit when it played at last summer's Fresh Fruit Festival; I kind of wish I had, because I am very curious to know how playwright/director Jeff Bedillion expanded his play into the 3-hour extravaganza that it has become. My sense is that at the core of this Fruit is a compelling story of coming out, intolerance, and self-acceptance.
There are two main through-lines in Forbidden Fruit, which intersect only at the very end. One concerns Brian, a young man in a committed relationship with a woman named Lisa; but the relationship is falling apart, because both of them have fallen in love with Brian's best friend, Michael. Brian's journey toward acceptance of himself as a gay man and away from his fantasy/infatuation with Michael (who is straight) propels half of the play. The other half revolves around Christian, a college student home for the summer and living with his very conservative, ultra-religious mother in a town in the American Midwest. Christian, too, has become aware of his homosexuality, and he is struggling to come to terms with it, in the face of his mother's vocal opposition and years of Bible School training that he is somehow "perverted" or "evil."
These are, to be sure, worthy subjects for dramatic exploration—perhaps even more so today than a few years ago, with issues like gay marriage so visible and hotly debated. Bedillion deals with his characters' anxieties and fears in interesting and sometimes authentic ways—scenes of Christian fantasizing how he will break the news to his mother, or of Brian's first tentative trip to a gay bathhouse, are both humorous and heartfelt.
A prologue, entr'acte, and epilogue—all take place at a gallery where the older and happier Christian is showing some of his paintings. In the pre-prologue, the cast members warn the audience that they're about to be assaulted, offended, and taught something.
Bedillion has apparently absorbed lots of theatre technique during his career, and he's thrown many of them into the mix of his play. Masks, movement, dance, and many variations of camp/pastiche enhance the show; pulsing drumming by percussionist James Borcher is a great addition, though.
Without knowing what Bedillion's shorter original was like, I can't say for certain how much his propensity for excess in this production is actually new. I am positive that a strongly focused rewrite of this piece could very well bring to the fore the important, brutal truths at Forbidden Fruit's center.
PLAYBILL
FORBIDDEN FRUIT Returns By Andrew Gans July 10, 2004
Jeff Bedillion's Forbidden Fruit, which was part of last summer's Fresh Fruit Festival, returns for a limited engagement this month in the West Village.From July 21-Aug. 7, the new version of Bedillion's love story will be presented at the Wings Theatre. Originally a one-act play, the work has been expanded to two acts and, according to production notes, features "everything from comedy to drama, including sexy dance segments, two new songs and sexy bodies galore." The 30-year-old Bedillion wrote the play a decade ago while a student at Kent State University. The love story set in the midwest played a controversial run at the now-closed Cabaret Dada in Ohio — the Ohio City Council wanted the piece removed from the theatre's schedule — and the playwright revised the piece for last season's Fresh Fruit festival, which was billed as "The First International Lower East Side Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Theater and Performance Festival." Bedillion spoke to Playbill On-Line last year about his work, explaining, "It's set in an abstract Garden of Eden — the Midwest. It's a love story of two men, basically the history of the two men before they met eachother. One of the main characters is named Christian. He has a religious journey, coming to terms with his sexuality and confronting his mother, who's a religious tyrant. . . . There's also a love triangle with a character named Brian and a woman he's dating named Lisa. They both fall in love with his friard from the Fresh Fruit Festival; Bedillion was also awarded the Best Director prize.
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