Christina Groom and Gladys Ramirez in "Bridesmaids."
One of the comic stalwarts of summer theater in South Florida, "Shorts Gone Wild," is back at Island City Stage.
Now in its fourth year, this annual collection of short plays with LGBTQ themes grew from City Theater’s Summer Shorts. "Shorts Gone Wild" is usually the promiscuous cousin of quirky "Summer Shorts," but the producers have decided to capitalize on current events and do something less sexy and more timely.
A co-production between City Theater in Miami and Island City Stage in Wilton Manors, this year’s addition of "Shorts Gone Wild" is less frisky and more political, even though, keeping with tradition, one actor strips off his shirt about 30 seconds into the show. Each play has a political theme mostly how political issues can cause problems in relationships.
This year’s ensemble features Larry Buzzeo, Christina Groom, Rita Joe, Noah Levine, Gladys Ramirez and Dominic Smith, with Gail S. Garrisan, Margaret M. Ledford, John Manzelli, Michael Leeds and Andy Rogow handling the directing duties.
The running thread between the plays is that young Mr. Smith is voting in his first big election and is learning about democracy and the political process from the other more experienced actors. In past years, the order of plays has been chosen by the audience by picking numbers out of a hat. This year, in keeping with the political theme, choices are treated like primaries and elections, with the audience voting between two plays at a time.
Prodigious playwright Michael McKeever has two plays in the line-up, and on opening night they were performed back-to-back at the start of the show. "Things My Grandfather Taught Me" has all the hallmark McKeever attributes funny, insightful, poignant and features Smith and Joe playing gay and lesbian best friends. Trouble ensues because their partners, played by Levine and Ramirez, hate each other, and they violate the thing Grampa said not to do: talk publicly about politics.
The second McKeever play, "Dear GOP," feels like an autobiographical thread is running through it and features Buzzeo as a man speaking his heartfelt, love letter-like break-up with his beloved political party. Buzzeo captures the wistfulness of looking back fondly on a long relationship once the rose-colored glasses have been smashed to pieces.
Susan Westfall's "Be The Change." Pictured, Christina Groom, Noah Levine, Larry Buzzeo and Dominic Smith.
"Jenny & Simone" by Christopher Demos-Brown is the sexiest play in the bunch, as well as one of the best. In it, Groom and Ramirez play a couple of lusty bridesmaids who seem to be a match made in heaven, except for disagreeing about one thing.
You can actually feel the glee with which Stuart Meltzer wrote the alliterative and linguistically acrobatic descriptions in "Lips Like Crocus," in which a gay man describes how stimulated he gets when he watches a certain news commentator. Levine is a delight to watch as he brings Meltzer’s words to vivid, exciting life.
"The Lie," by Michael Leeds, is a clever tale about a country singer wife, her lobbyist husband, and their housekeeper (Buzzeo, Groom and Joe) who hatch a plan to revive their flagging careers — or so it seems. Watching Groom, in her silver cowgirl hat and southern drawl, plotting and scheming, is delicious fun.
Jessica Farr fancifully reimagines the next logical step for Bernie Sanders’ disappointed supporters in "Bernie Singles Dot Com," which plays like an infomercial with Levine extolling the joys of settling and compromising in one’s relationships.
A couple of plays don’t land well.
Michael Aman’s "The Incident in the Bathroom" attempts to tackle the transgender bathroom issue in North Carolina that’s been in the news lately, and while Smith, Buzzeo and Joe do their best, the writing and premise comes off as forced and preachy.
And in Susan Westfall’s "Be the Change," Groom and Levine play an average married couple on opposite ends of the election spectrum out for their regular Friday night date at a chain restaurant; unbeknownst to them, the restaurant has been taken over by new gay owners out to serve food and change minds. It features good performances, a very scantily clad Smith, and Buzzeo in a fabulous, futuristic silver jumpsuit, but the scattered writing makes it another weak link in the "Shorts Gone Wild 4" chain. It’s unfathomable as to why this play was engineered as the evening’s closer, except for the fact that it features the entire ensemble.
Farr’s "Bernie Singles Dot Com," which also features the whole cast, would have ended the evening on a more interesting note.
Despite missing the mark here and there, "Shorts Gone Wild 4" hits the bullseye for sly political commentary done in an entertaining way.
Shorts Gone Wild 4 runs through August 28. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 5 p.m. Sundays. $35. Island City Stage/City Theater performing at The Infinite Abyss Stage, 2304 N. Dixie Highway, Wilton Manors. (954) 519-2533, islandcitystage.org.
