was it fun? yes. was it funny? absolutely. but also it banks on layer upon layer of intertextuality. you need to know some Shakespeare to have a sense of how absurd it is that these two actors Leo and Jack are in Amish country performing two-man-excerpts. you need to have a sense of the context that is York, as old and rich and conservative suburban community so you’d know how while Meg is a woman who knows of a bigger world, she stays put and is engaged to be married to the minister. you need to have a sense of how this small cast and its dynamism is premised on 1950s America and its changing cultural landscape, where a family doctor, an aunt Florence who refuses to die, and the most random of bimbos on that stage are but symptoms.
of course without banking on all of these, Repertory Philippines’ Leading Ladies would still be that funny play about cross-dressing British men. but appreciating it as such would be to think this nothing but a 1980s Roderick Paulate movie. (more…)