A trio of young women — all in their late 20s, which is significant — trash a posh hotel suite in Leslye Headland’s hilarious The Bachelorette. The play makes its Wisconsin debut at the cozy, 64-seat Alchemist Theater, located in one of Milwaukee’s southern suburbs. The show is produced by Theater RED. A fourth young woman, whom the other three have known since childhood, is getting married. Becky is the first one in their group to tie the knot, and the other women are seething. Not only is the bride-to-be overweight, a fact mentioned often and cruelly, but she snagged someone who is not only good-looking but rich. The unmarried gals are so jealous that they spend the entire evening trying to erase the unfairness of it all. They attempt to accomplish this via booze, pills, cocaine, weed, and sex. If this isn’t “girls going wild,” it certainly can be categorized as “girls behaving badly.” The playwright’s point, one surmises, is the women can behave as badly as men. And, as their catty conversation suggests, they can inflict pain far worse by using words than by throwing a punch.
Two of the women, Gena (Liz Faraglia) and Katie (Shannon Nettesheim), are so currently out-of-favor with the bride (played by Kelly Doherty), that they aren’t even on the guest list. But they are invited to the bachelorette party the night before the wedding. What gives?
It turns out that another “friend,” Regan (Tess Cinpinski), asks them to come over at the last minute. It seems Becky has decided to spend the night with her soon-to-be groom in his room, leaving Regan in charge. Regan, one of Becky’s former college roommates, is the maid of honor. Regan wants to take advantage of the situation by throwing a party. As her guests soon discover, some unexpected bubbly (in bottles) stashed in the suite’s bathtub proves to be as good a party starter as any.
The Bachelorette, which is not associated with the popular TV show of the same name, opened Off-Broadway in 2010 at Second Stage Theater. After a successful run, the play was made into a 2012 film starring Kirsten Dunst.
The play spends a great deal of time discussing such issues as blow jobs and getting wasted. Katie, the prettiest and most mentally unbalanced of the crew, admits that she often drinks to the point where she blacks out. Like the others, she is trying to mask her self-loathing.
Before the play ends, a limp and unresponsive Katie is the focus of everyone’s attention. Not just that of her friends, but also of a couple of guys that Regan invites to come over on a whim. Her partner for the evening is Jeff (Nick Narcisi), a smooth talker who is confident about his ability to get girls into bed. His slacker friend, Joe (Evan Koepnick), is left with the more-than-inebriated Katie.
The Theater RED cast does a fine job of mining the humor from this skin-deep script. The theater was nearly full on the night this show was reviewed. About percent of the audience seemed to be comprosed of millennials, most of whom enjoyed watching such follies.
As Joe, Even Koepnick hits the target when he compares himself now to when he was 16. “I seem exactly the same as I was then, except taller,” he says.
Another sample of the show’s humor is this exchange between Katie and Joe, who are momentarily left alone: “Kiss me again,” she asks him. “You taste like vomit,” he answers, backing away.
Director Mark Boergers manages to keep the frenzied fun going for the show’s 90-minutes. The set design is what one would expect for a grand suite in a grand hotel, and it’s lit appropriately by “upscale” lighting fixtures. One of the show’s guilty pleasures is seeing how guys are treated post-sex (in Jeff’s case). He is summarily dismissed by Regan after Jeff fails to answer the question, “What is my name?” Regan basically tells him to take a hike. Before they exit, Joe demonstrates that male chivalry isn’t completely dead. When they discover that Katie is really far sicker than at first thought, Joe offers to wait for the ambulance. Katie’s friend, Gena, seems to keep her cool while under the influence. She says she’ll stay with Katie at the hospital.
As they depart, the much-discussed bride makes a last-minute appearance. Becky is horrified by the broken wedding gifts, the spilled booze, and fancy furniture now strewn about the suite. Doherty (as Becky) provides some truly funny moments as she tries to take it all in. When she presses Regan for answers, Regan (Tess Cinpinski) isn’t in the mood for a reprimand. She “lets it all hang out,” as they used to say, about her true feelings for Becky.
If nothing else, this should make Becky even happier that she’s getting married the next day, to a guy who sounds a lot more decent than these skanky girlfriends.
