WOMEN’S THEATRE FESTIVAL: Bad Dates
A Theater Review by Julinda D. Lewis
At: TheatreLab, The Basement, 300 E. Broad St, RVA 23219
Performances: March 30 & April 5, April 11, April 16 & April 20, 2019
Ticket Prices: $25 general admission; $20 for RAPT card holders; $15 for students
Info: (804) 359-2003 or 5thwalltheatre.org
Fresh off another one-woman show (if you disregard the two supporting angels in RTP’s An Act of God), Maggie Bavolack is tackling another comedic role, this time as a single mother and idiot savant restaurateur in Theresa Rebeck’s Bad Dates – a play that features more than two dozen pairs of shoes and a mysterious shoebox full of cash. Briefly referencing Imelda Marcos, our heroine admits to owning 600 pairs of shoes, including designs by Jimmy Choo, Joan & David, and Chanel. (The red stilettos are hot, but I personally prefer the purple suede platform pumps.)
Bavolack plays Hayley Walker, the successful manager of a restaurant whose Romanian owner is in prison for money laundering. She is divorced and has a daughter named Vera (who is described in the first act as 13 years old and later in the second act as 12 years old), a ride or die friend named Eileen who is her bartender, and a brother named BJ who gives her dating advice.
We hear Vera’s rock music selections emanating from her room each time Hayley goes to ask her fashion advice and all the communications between Hayley and the unseen Eileen and BJ take place on Hayley’s animal print princess phone. At one point Hayley produces an actual phone book – something my friends aged 30 and under may have never seen, much less used – but I wondered why she was using the yellow pages (which listed business numbers) when she appeared to be making a personal call to her cheating boyfriend’s home (residential numbers were listed in the white pages). Bad Dates was first produced in 2003, when both wired and cell phones were in use in many homes, but the telephone, the phone book, Hayley’s eclectic wardrobe, and the nondescript setting make it difficult to identify the time and place.
The heart of the play revolves around Hayley’s horrible dating experiences which range from fantasizing about the “bug guy” at a Buddhist party where everyone sat in the rain to a date with a gay lawyer that her mother arranged to a short-lived relationship with a man named Lewis who seemed like the perfect guy until he failed to show up one night. Hayley doesn’t just have bad luck with men, she’s been out of the dating game for a long time and some of the men she meets are perfectly awful!
Bavolack evokes endless chuckles discussing Hayley’s trials and tribulations while parading through a seemingly endless collection of shoes and changing clothes several times with ease – without benefit of a mirror. But even with the intimacy of the TheatreLAB Basement space, I often felt that Rebeck’s script was lacking. Hayley addressed the audience, breaking the wall, but Rebeck never really allowed her to connect with the audience. Director Melissa Rayford kept the pace moving, and I enjoyed Bavolack’s effortless familiarity with the material, but the script just seemed to lack consistency and did not take advantage of opportunities to connect more closely with the audience.
Speaking of inconsistencies, the set (I did not see a designer credit) featured a single bed with a nice comforter and a comfortable looking hassock, but the dressing table and chair were scarred and battered, and Hayley’s closet was just a metal clothing rack. A simple black curtain separated Hayley’s room from the rest of the apartment which seemed to be a dark, windowless space that could have been in a basement. I would have expected at least a nice rug and painted walls for a woman who was managing a successful restaurant. This threadbare setting made the line, “Brooklyn, it’s not as bad as you think it is,” seem quite odd. Later, describing a scene in a Manhattan police station, Hayley says, “What we see on television is really quite accurate.” The same cannot be said of Bad Dates. It is quite amusing, but somewhat less than accurate.
Julinda D. Lewis is a dancer, teacher, and writer who was born in Brooklyn, NY and now lives in Eastern Henrico County.
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Photo Credits: Destiny Martinez Photography
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