Related Articles: Theater, All

Review: 'Right Place, Right Time'

A wedding night goes awry with comic consequences at Renegade Theatre Experiment world premiere

by Gary Singh on Jan 27, 2010
 Email  Print Share

RICHARD LAMPARSKY (Ron Talbot) is a washed-up romance novelist going through a midlife crisis at age 40. There he is at an upscale hotel bar, putting away drinks and waiting for his ex-wife to meet him, which apparently isn’t going to happen. She’s a no-show. In walks Gloria Winwood (Helena Clarkson), a powerful older woman with her own predicament: her daughter’s groom has bailed on their wedding, and she needs a substitute. Thus, Lia Romeo’s Right Place, Right Time, a world premiere at Renegade Theatre Experiment, begins aptly with two folks in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, we don’t hear enough from the bartender.

What follows, though, is a wonderful circus of twists, turns and unexpected relationships. Lamparsky goes upstairs with Gloria to meet her daughter, Stephanie (Elisa Valentine), a rich, bratty and powerful babe who needs to get married for all the wrong reasons. To Lamparsky’s delight, she’s heard of him. Whoa! She’s actually read his romance novels. Being a washed-up novelist, that fact gives him confidence with the opposite sex. What a concept. Thus, they get married. “Weddings are all about the bride,” Stephanie says. “The groom is just another accessory.”

Stephanie’s original husband-to-be, Mark (Keith Marshall), who ditched her at the wedding, eventually returns from a jaunt with prostitutes in Vegas. He proves to be exactly what one would expect: a brainless jock who absolutely deserves the materialistic prima donna Stephanie in the first place. The rest of the story, thankfully, revels in the unexpected. Relationships are suddenly rekindled. And then nullified. And then again. The four main contenders argue with each another in tag-team fashion, resulting in a gritty and grinning exploration of false love, superficial relationships, materialism, adultery and bad bloody Marys. Richard’s ex-wife, Linda (Blythe Murphy), also eventually rolls in and provides the only voice of reason in the entire circus. I would like to have seen her and Gloria in a steel-cage match. That would have been a fine spectacle.

In fact, the play’s episodic development almost perfectly resembles the script for a professional wrestling bout. The sensitive romance novelist battles the immature meathead. The two strong women, mother and daughter, battle over the two guys in more ways than one. Everyone interferes with everyone else and the only thing missing is the bartender leaping off the top rope with a foreign object. Again, I would like to have seen more of him, because it seems like none of the characters knew how to drink.

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME, a Renegade Theatre Experiment production, plays Thursday–Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm through Feb. 6 at the Historic Hoover Theater, 1635 Park Ave., San Jose. Tickets are $15–$23. (408.493.0783)



by Gary Singh on Jan 27, 2010
 Email  Print Share