In The Joy Of Gay Sex, the same Berkeley/San Francisco troupe who created the riotous Medea conjure up a pithy, sparkling comedy about swinging singles in the Bay Area. One performer, Jane (Jane Paik) typifies what's funny about the production: her character is a caricature of the Hollywood brat who indulged in too much cocaine, yet her smart-mouthed, nasty, cool quality copes with the 90's. Eventually Jane bonds with the pretentious, stuffed-shirt Berkeley professor, who turns out to be Jeff's (Jeff Fierson) dissertation advisor.
Calum Grant is the straight-laced academic who pretends to be horrified by the shenanigans of the younger set. Her exact opposite is the boisterous Ms. Paik, a shapely Asian babe who's a druggy dragon-lady. Jeff, too smarmily hair-dresserish but uncompromisingly, belligerently gay, becomes infatuated with Gabriel (Gabriel Macen), a shy singer. Simultaneously, Kegan, a Doris Day look and behave-alike, falls for Elsa (Elsa Wolthausen). Neither Elsa nor Gabriel is ready for commitment, so the other two resort to stratagems to bag and keep them. Corey (Corey Schaffer) couples with a boozy Christian (Christian Milne) who keeps calling him "Casey."
Eventually, couples re-shuffle, but the romantic plot isn't important here. John Fisher's clever dialogue has bite and creates a sophisticated contemporary world. Various dance numbers prove extraneous, but feminist role models, political correctness and gay icons are all frothily satirized. But why the suggestively misleading title?
The Joy Of Gay Sex is an appealing, almost mainstream romantic farce, very much of the Now.
