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| You're My Favorite Kind of Pretty |
The play started before the lights even went down; the crowd chatted as Ballweber stood in a corner of the stage clad in white shirt and pants, wide blue tie and blue Converse sneaker with little white wings attached, coyly alluding to the mythic messengers and Cupid. As Marvin Gaye crooned, Ballweber shifted his weight to some half-dance moves. The drawn-out awkwardness of this opening provided some giggles, but as a metaphor (a word, when used in the play, prompted an annoying voice-over definition along with blatant exposition) for the show, which went long without deciding to go anywhere original.
…Kind of Pretty was smartly dramaturged by playwright Deb Stein to give an informed edge to several of the bits. Miranda dates the moon (Ballweber holding a balloon that is a great sight gag) to tie her to Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt and chastity, while Ferguson’s Heathcliff is first seen shooting arrows at rabbits. One of Ballweber’s “Fate” characterizations, the grandmotherly neighbor Gladys also acts as a seer and manifestation of the gods come to help mortal man. These smarter edges are undercut by a reliance on puns to push plot points, sight gags and line repetitions that aren’t quite jokes and breaking the fourth wall in an attempt to keep it light, but that actually loses investment in characters.
There are some good laughs in the show, many courtesy of Ballweber. His visual riffing on Charon, the boatman of the River Styx comes across as a manic Jack Black at his best, and should make people excited to see his direction of Four Humors’ Romeo & Juliet this spring. Ferguson disconcertingly channels Will Ferrell at some points; down to the butt-rubbing and snarky grin, and especially during a shirtless debauch set to AC/DC’s “Back in Black” while Heathcliff goes off to resolve some of his own issues.
All in all, …Kind of Pretty comes down to 3 talented performers trying to tie together scenes that haven’t decided where they want to go in service of a story line too rote to be interesting and too unexplored to be critical. Ferguson’s past productions have had that critical, darker edge of exploration, and here’s hoping that fatherhood hasn’t softened him away from that.
You’re My Favorite Kind of Pretty runs March 6-9 at the Southern Theater. Showtime at 8pm Thur-Sat, 7pm Sun, with AD/ASL translation Friday and a post-show discussion Saturday.
Location Info:
Southern Theater
Artist Info: Jon Ferguson
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