By Myra Chanin . . .
I’ve been writing about the arts long enough to be sure of one thing, there’s no dearth of talent anywhere on earth. One may well ask, not even in Delray Beach? Even there, you’ll find an abundance of local talent. Not necessarily in fancy-schmancy amphitheaters like The Kravis Center with their tiers of snowbird filled seats and stages festooned with imported high-kicking weary road show companies performing our former century’s hit musicals. The local talent is found in smaller venues, like in the 80- seat storefront-cum-Sol Theater in a Federal Highway Strip Mall where Boca Stage presents fabulous entertainment.
Every BocaStage production I’ve seen has been as good or better than the one before. And their present offering, RX by non-South Florida Native Kate Fodor, would have knocked my sox off if I were wearing any. Rx is witty satire which juxtaposes the frailty of individuals against the audacious chutzpah of big Pharma. Fortunately, my addiction to BocaStage’s Rx begat two non-toxic side effects. It made me (and my guest) burst out laughing unexpectedly and had us strolling back to my car with beaming smiles.
Playwright Kate Fodor is a smart, imaginative and serious writer, a multiple New American Play Award Winner for several of her earlier dramas. Her smarts can be traced to the cognitive scientist, philosophy and linguist DNA in her genes. Fodor’s dialog is shrewd, nifty and impertinent, but she also understands disappointment. Her plot is tidy. Whatever she sets up she neatly concludes. You may think you’ve never seen her work, but if you like to laugh, you’d be wrong. Fodor was the writer/producer/executive story editor of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, with Season Four in the wings. The New York Times deemed Rx a Critic’s Pick and compared its sardonic view of today’s screwed up world to the films of Ernst Lubitsch, one of the comedy greats of early Hollywood. I recently streamed a 1928 Lubitsch silent film on kino.now.com. Fodor is funnier.
Let us now return to praise local South Florida natives with a plethora of kudos to Genie Croft, the play’s first-class director Rx. Wow! What a sensational comic sensibility she commands. Mike Nichols of blessed memory could not put together a better cast or staged Fodor’s clean, clever, physical comedy to elicit bigger laughs. Not only did the actors deliver their lines exquisitely, their expressions and body language were picture perfect as well.
A substantial round of applause is well past due for Set Designer Dustin Hamilton, whose surfeit of imagination and artistic subtlety once again triumphs over the usual budget limitations. He also created the Blanche DuBois-ish bedroom in which BocaStage’s Marvelous Death of Marilyn Monroe overdosed. In RX, Hamilton mixes and matches lots of empty picture frames, a desk, a wheeled cupboard and two flatbeds into a simple, versatile, slick backdrop for a magazine office, a medical examining room, the fat old ladies oversized underpants department store alcove and our hero’s bedroom.
Now, plaudits for all the South Florida based actors in the order of their appearance. For starters, the delightful Elizabeth Price – an MFA from FAU with two Golden Palm Awards who teaches acting and directing at Lynn University. She’s irresistible as weepie Meena Pierotti, the sad-eyed Managing Editor of the Piggery department at American Cattle and Swine Magazine. Meena suffers from Schmidt Pharma’s newly created disease, workplace depression (aka boredom) and manages to become a test subject for an experimental drug that cures it called PS-925 which should be said aloud to be appreciated.
Next, Timothy Mark Davis, as our poor long-suffering hero, Dr. Phil Gray – theater and film actor, director and producer who’s set for AmazonPrime in Pompano Boy. He plays the doctor who gave up his dream ER dream job for the higher paying but unfulfilling job with Schmitz Pharma. He falls in love with Meena because he admires her published prose poems which received awful critical reviews. Alas, their romance crashes when she breaks his heart when the drug he’s testing actually works. But not to worry, that makes him a perfect subject for a drug the cures heartbreak, alas, not all that well.
The exhilarating Janice Hamilton – a Philly gal who relocated to play Monique Riley in the international TV series, “Miami Sands” and became a spokesperson and auctioneer. She owns the stage every minute she’s on it as Schmidt Pharma’s Sales and Merchandising Mistress. If you meet her in a dark alley, hold on to your purse.
Laura Turnbull – a member of Actors’ Equity and recipient of several Carbonell awards has worked in almost every professional theater in South Florida. She’s Frances, a long suffering self-denying recent widow who meets Meena near the old ladies’ underwear.
Jim Gibbons – an original and frequent Sol Theater performer who’s appeared on many local stages, plays Dr. Ed, inventor of still untested heartbreak curing drug. He may look like his hair pays homage to Albert Einstein, but don’t nominate him for a Nobel Prize in medicine too soon.
Don’t discount Steve Carroll and Zach Gregory. They have smaller roles but contribute to the general frivolity.
A word of warning. I called close friends when I left the theater and told them to catch the next days matinee. Obviously, I was not the only one making calls because when they arrived they learned that the performance was sold out and everyone who’d bought a tix showed up.
There are two more week-ends of performance to be seen during the week-ends of January 28 and February 2nd. Friday and Saturday nights at 8 pm. Saturday at Sunday matinees at 2 pm. All shows are performed at the Sol Theater, 3333 N. Federal Street in Boca Raton FL 33431 561-447-8829. Not only will you have a pleasant afternoon or evening, but you’ll help BocaStage with COVID recovery.
Photos by: Amy Pasquantonio
