THEATER
Party Monsters
Dicey birthday soirée with frenemies, exes, tricks & a ghost
BY DAVID KENNERLEY
A couple of years back,
Drew Droege wowed audiences
and critics alike
with “Bright Colors and
Bold Patterns,” his wickedly funny
solo show about a garrulous guest
at a same-sex wedding run amok,
directed by none other than Michael
Urie.
And now the playwright/ performer
has returned to the SoHo
Playhouse with another queer
comedy of manners, “Happy Birthday
Doug,” where he embodies an
assortment of blowhards, drunkards,
and bitchy queens who have
gathered at a tony wine bar in Los
Feliz, Los Angeles, to celebrate
Doug’s 41st birthday.
Not that these revelers are completely
despicable. In Droege’s capable
hands, each reveals a tender,
slightly tragic fragility beneath
Dark and Stormy Nights
Three earnest evenings of theater that fall short
BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE
It is only in the fi nal 10 ten
minutes that Bess Wohl’s
new comedy “Grand Horizons”
settles down and gives
us the kind of complex and affecting
humanity that made her previous
work, particularly the brilliant
“Small Mouth Sounds,” so powerful.
For the two hours leading up to
that point, however, the piece is a
largely disorganized comedy in the
vein of lesser Neil Simon or a generic
sitcom. The broad strokes demands
of this type of comedy are
at odds with Wohl’s deeper, more
sympathetic insights, which is why
the trite sex jokes, formulaic plotting,
and shallow characters are
more tedious than tickling.
After a 50-year marriage, Nancy
tells her husband Bill that she
wants a divorce. Their two sons —
one married and expecting a child,
the other gay — arrive and chaos
Drew Droege in his “Happy Birthday Doug,” directed by Tom DeTrinis, at the SoHo Playhouse through
March 1.
their shiny armor.
One by one they chat with the
birthday boy who, as it happens,
has recently published a novel.
Michael Urie in Bess Wohl’s “Grand Horizons,” directed by Leigh Silverman, at the Helen Hayes through
March 1.
ensues. Buried secrets are told,
old resentments aired, affairs are
revealed as this collection of venal
and selfi sh people knock about
Nancy and Bill’s unit in a generic
RUSS ROWLAND
Most throw measured praise his
way, barely concealing their envy.
When they insist they’ve read the
book, it’s not easy to believe them.
JOAN MARCUS
retirement community. The structure
is equally tired and predictable
as each child gets a scene
with each parent, Bill’s current
girlfriend, Clara, has a scene with
My favorite partygoer is Jason,
who claims he is sober, but as he
natters away to Doug it’s clear he’s
hopped up on some illicit substance
or another. He also insists that his
life is super amazing since he quit
acting. Turns out he barely knows
the guest of honor and wasn’t even
invited.
“Listen Honey, you don’t ever
have to invite me. I’ll always show
up,” he says, in a pathetic haze of
cluelessness.
There’s also Brian, the hyperaware,
26-year-old waiter at the
bar who — quelle surprise— is
writing a screenplay and is also a
DJ. He takes political correctness
to the extreme, refusing to play
hip-hop for fear of being accused of
cultural appropriation. He apologizes
for using the word “guys” to
describe his roommates because
➤ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, continued on p.25
Nancy, and so on. Yet, Wohl being
who she is, there are glimmers of
her inherent talent for touching
deeper elements of human experience,
such as when the gay son,
Brian, has to confront why he’s
alone or that his choices as a high
school drama teacher have roots in
the alienation he felt in his family.
When Nancy tells Brian that she’s
had an affair for many years, she
says, “I will be seen as a full person,”
and that’s the best moment of
the play — in its simplicity it says
so much about the relationship between
parents and children. Those
moments are a tonic in the otherwise
manic goings on.
The high-power cast, including
James Cromwell, Ben McKenzie,
and Ashely Park, does what they
can with these moments, though
director Leigh Silverman doesn’t
give them much and the comedy
➤ GRAND HORIZONS, continued on p.25
February 13 - February 26, 2 24 020 | GayCityNews.com
/GayCityNews.com
