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starladyTroublemaker, or The Freakin Kick-A Adventures of Bradley Boatright. Written by Dan LeFranc, directed by Lila Neugebauer, performed by Berkeley Rep.
I have generally enjoyed my season tickets to Berkeley Rep, and I genuinely loved this play. Bottom line: if you like Scott Pilgrim or Calvin & Hobbes, you'll like this play. It's like Scott Pilgrim, but in middle school, in working-class Rhode Island, in the 90s. (Nineteen mighty-four, to be precise.)
The play follows the adventures and misadventures of its eponymous hero Bradley Boatright, who's on his way to being branded a troublemaker (or, as the parlance of the local correctional school has it, a "moubletaker") as he and his best friend Mikey battle the blond, rich and evil Jake Miller, with the help of local intel specialist Loretta Beretta.
One of the best things about the play it the sheer verve of its language; rather than not use swear words, which anyone who survived sixth grade knows is completely unrealistic, LeFranc invented a whole new set of swear words of his own. The characters are wickedly knowledgable about some things (race, for example), and totally oblivious about others in a very realistic way, and it's a tribute to the play that we don't even realize that, Calvin & Hobbes-like, Bradley's reality isn't the same as that of everybody else until the beginning of the third act. Indeed, one of the other best things about the play, aside from the fact that it was hilarious and the characters were awesome, was that having set up a series of grand and awesome versions of alternate reality, LeFranc knew enough to puncture them for maximum effect when it counts.
The play had its world premiere with this production, and there are still some kinks to be worked out. It's too long (the magical realist beach sequence in act 3 should be the first thing to go), and as someone else said in front of me as I walked out, there needed to be more Loretta Beretta because she is amazeballs, and some of act 2 could have been streamlined, I thought. But as well as being dangerously smart, the play has a heart, and I would happily see it again.
I have generally enjoyed my season tickets to Berkeley Rep, and I genuinely loved this play. Bottom line: if you like Scott Pilgrim or Calvin & Hobbes, you'll like this play. It's like Scott Pilgrim, but in middle school, in working-class Rhode Island, in the 90s. (Nineteen mighty-four, to be precise.)
The play follows the adventures and misadventures of its eponymous hero Bradley Boatright, who's on his way to being branded a troublemaker (or, as the parlance of the local correctional school has it, a "moubletaker") as he and his best friend Mikey battle the blond, rich and evil Jake Miller, with the help of local intel specialist Loretta Beretta.
One of the best things about the play it the sheer verve of its language; rather than not use swear words, which anyone who survived sixth grade knows is completely unrealistic, LeFranc invented a whole new set of swear words of his own. The characters are wickedly knowledgable about some things (race, for example), and totally oblivious about others in a very realistic way, and it's a tribute to the play that we don't even realize that, Calvin & Hobbes-like, Bradley's reality isn't the same as that of everybody else until the beginning of the third act. Indeed, one of the other best things about the play, aside from the fact that it was hilarious and the characters were awesome, was that having set up a series of grand and awesome versions of alternate reality, LeFranc knew enough to puncture them for maximum effect when it counts.
The play had its world premiere with this production, and there are still some kinks to be worked out. It's too long (the magical realist beach sequence in act 3 should be the first thing to go), and as someone else said in front of me as I walked out, there needed to be more Loretta Beretta because she is amazeballs, and some of act 2 could have been streamlined, I thought. But as well as being dangerously smart, the play has a heart, and I would happily see it again.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-20 04:09 (UTC)Concur on Loretta Beretta, though--she was totally awesome. And I loved Mikey. And the smoking-jacket pyjamas.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-20 07:05 (UTC)Mikey was great too! Despite the length issues, I really loved a lot of it.