Bad Dates - The Reviews
COMEDY PLAYS WELL IN A CONDO
UNUSUAL LOCATION SUITS COLLABORATIVE ARTS' FUNNY 1-WOMAN SHOW
by JULIE YORK COPPENS, Staff Writer
There was the guy who spent dinner talking about his colon. There was the "table of weirdos" at the Buddhist book benefit. There was the Columbia law professor her mom fixed her up with - who turned out to be gay. And mean.
These and other fiascoes in the social life of a single mom add up to a fantastic night of theater in "Bad Dates."
For an audience intimately assembled in the living room of a Dilworth condo, actor Laurie Riffe spills all the details of Haley Walker's descent into the dating pool: The shoes. The hopes. The humiliations. The upscale Manhattan restaurant Haley manages and where she flirts with the one guy who might liberate her from the shadow of the money-laundering Romanian mafia that owns the place.
Theresa Rebeck's hilarious one-woman comedy fits Riffe and this unconventional performance space a lot better than Haley's Chanel pumps fit her swollen feet. (The woman's frenzied, pre-date changes of clothing and footwear constitute most of the play's action. There are also phone calls made and received, some trips to the fridge, and a few "off-stage" consults with Haley's reclusive 12-year-old daughter. It's all much more entertaining than it sounds.) Collaborative Arts director Elise Wilkinson, having performed her duties as matchmaker, steps back and allows Riffe to spin this unlikely chronicle of romantic and financial intrigue for us, a few dozen of her closest friends.
She has us at hello.
Only once does the memorable evening threaten to derail: When a good date goes bad, and Riffe (courageously but wrongly, we think) plays Haley's disappointment as though there weren't a crowd of strangers looking on. Suddenly we feel like intruders. But Riffe regains her rhythm, and we're sorry when the time comes to kiss goodnight.
Following its hit Shakespearean stagings at RiRa and on The Green, Collaborative Arts proves it can pull off contemporary material with equal originality and aplomb. "Bad Dates" is a perfect chaser to the other one-woman show (played by a man) that opened this week, "I Am My Own Wife" at Actor's Theatre.
The new season is looking very good. Which is more than we can say for the guy with the irritable bowel.
The Charlotte Observer, September 9, 2006
An excerpt from ...
Better Than Jefferson?
Surviving the Nazis in pearls and a dowdy dress
by PERRY TANNENBAUM
[...]From Charlotte's indomitable spirit and the weightiness of her preservationist mission, you'd think it would be a descent to the vanity, the cattiness and shameless inconsequence of Laurie Riffe's one-woman performance in Bad Dates. Actually, it's an ascent to the fifth floor of 1315 East condominiums -- and a fairly long circuitous walk to Unit 537 when you exit the elevator.
Tickets to this ultra-intimate Collaborative Arts production entitle theatergoers to dip into a modest spread of finger foods -- plus the beverage cooler -- before Riffe arrives as Haley Walker. Considering that Collaborative has previously delivered an outstanding outdoors Midsummer Night's Dream as a freebie on the Green, we cannot be surprised by its generosity.
Very likely, if you do snag one of the 50 seats to each of these unique living room events, you'll find yourself feeling more like a casual guest than a serious arts patron. That's very much the environmental point as Haley splits her attention between her two closest confidants, the audience and a full-length mirror.
She's been through one marriage and seems to have a tenuous handle on motherhood as she begins her plunge back into the dating jungle. Nervous and giddy in front of the mirror. Soliciting approval from her 12-year-old on her wardrobe choices.
It's tricky terrain, skillfully littered with surprises, comical catastrophes and the odd heartbreak by playwright Theresa Rebeck. Second-hand we go through Haley's tribulations with a gay freeloading Columbia law prof, a drip with a bad colon, a Lothario who looks too much like the cad who tormented Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce and multiple Buddhist bug epiphanies.
Collaborative founder Elise Wilkinson directs with all the resourcefulness you'd expect from someone who dreamt up this dishy production concept, and Riffe takes exactly the right tack with Haley. Lascivious, gossipy, poised and vulnerable.
Rebeck returns as co-author of more substantial fare when Carolina Actors Studio Theatre presents the 9/11-themed Omnium Gatherum later this season. Bad Dates will make you hungry for more.
Creative Loafing, September 19, 2006
(Read the entire article)
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