Throughout the play Francesca
addresses the audience, either complaining or explaining her feelings or
actions and we get to see various levels of her interaction with the
people around her. There’s Nick her gay neighbor and best friend,
co-workers Adele and Miranda, former boyfriend and on-demand bed partner
Robert and former boss and relative Victor.
As the play progresses you see
that her life is really not very good and she is the type of person who
thinks she’s always right – a diva with no cause to be one. Her biggest
high is putting someone down – anyone.
From an indeterminate place
somewhere in the ether, Anton shows up. She first sees him on her job –
later he meets her on the street – he even shows up at her house. He is an
eastern European man who dresses and speaks like he just got off the boat
(in the 1940’s) and is over solicitous with Francesca. He is delighted by
her misanthropic attitude and her foul language intrigues him. When
she loses her job he offers her employment as a personal assistant where
she does very little. She later learns he is fund raising to provide low
income housing for the needy.
Her relationship with Anton
improves and eventually gets to the intimate level (in spite of her
previous denials) and as the relationship grows her attitude changes to
the point that even her friends notice. Anton comes up with an explanation
of who he is and where he comes from but we really didn’t buy into his
story and kept hoping there was something more substantial in the end –
something more exciting. There wasn’t. In fact after he
discloses his origins things seem a bit confusing and eventually when they
part, at her insistence, his exit is almost as abrupt as his appearance.
We never really know why he showed up, where he really comes from and what
his real reason for being there is. But he is a delightful character all
the same.
The play is about a woman whose
greatest concern is “ME”. She’s almost impossible to please and even when
her life seems to have reached a stable point and things are going well
she decides this isn’t what she wants and changes everything. Anton’s
presence shows that no matter how much you do for someone, there are
people who are never satisfied and will take and take until they get their
fill, and then go after someone else to take more. Francesca goes back to
Robert after Anton leaves, but we suspect that given her prior history, he
too will become a casualty of her selfishness and egotistical attitude and
will be flicked off the table with a snap of the finger like a mere gnat.
All through the story there are
many laughs and many comic setups where the audience just howls. At about
two hours, it could be trimmed to a faster pace by tightening some of her
monologues. The ensemble is excellent with Mikhail Blokh taking center
stage as Anton. Daniel Montgomery is a riot as Nate, the neighbor and
Patty Jean Robinson and June Carryl are very believable as Miranda and
Adele her co-workers and friends. Warren Davis plays her boss Victor and
John Gale is Robert, her final paramour. Tracy Eliott as Francesca is
sometimes funny, sometimes abrasive, sometimes obnoxious and always self
indulging. Director Richard Tatum keeps a pretty tight grip on David
Hilder’s story which has some strange and inexplicable premises and flirts
around a fine line between the spiritual, the absurd and the rational.
Produced by Absolute Theatre and
Full Circle Theatrics, the production runs through August 28, 2011 at El
Centro Theatre, 804 North El Centro Avenue, Hollywood CA, 90038.
Reservations at
http://absolutetheatrela.org/buy-tickets/ or call 323-230-7261.
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