REVIEW: The Book Club Play
Through 07/26 @ The Dorset Theatre
Photos by T. Charles Erikson
“You would have to try very hard not to have a good time at The Book Club Play…”
Dorset Theatre Festival and Director Jackson Gay have crafted the perfect audience-pleasing comedy with Karen Zacarías’ The Book Club Play from 2017. There is a stately living room (Set Designer Riw Rakkulchon) greeting the audience as they enter the delightful barn theatre–it is the antithesis of the dump setting, which was here last month for Salvage.
The characters then greet the audience and rather formally introduce themselves one by one. It turns out they’ve been signed up by the controlling group Leader, Ana (commanding Caitlin Clouthier), to have their book club featured in avant-garde Danish documentarian Lars Knudsen’s next project. All book club meetings we see will also be filmed…which sometimes the members forget.
There’s Ana and her husband, Rob (excellent Alfredo Narciso), who never reads the book and will admit that he’s basically there for the food, and because he lives there. Ana has also brought along a man she dated in college, Will (very funny Lucas Dixon), who was Rob’s roommate. There’s also Jennifer (Elizabeth Narciso, stirring the pot) a paralegal who may have been the reason a married state senator had to drop his campaign, and Lily (whip-smart and engaging Abigail Stephenson) Ana’s office assistant at the Newspaper Ana is a columnist at.
The first book is discussed and the laughs come fast and furious with the latent homoerotic content of the Melville classic, as well as the exploration of reader’s engagement with the books, their surroundings, and each other.
Three of the book club members are unmarried and a fourth one, Alex (welcome wildcard Jax Jackson) will enter the club and disrupt the proceedings, along with a couple of shocking kisses. The members are all somewhat dissatisfied and their needs and wants are revealed in their behaviors, actions, and frequently funny dialogue.
The play is split up into scenes delving into specific books: “Moby Dick,” “The Age of Innocence,” “The Davinci Code” & “Twilight.” Between these scenes are monologues by professionals who deal in books: a Walmart manager, a retired librarian, a prison book dealer, a secret service officer. Alfred had my favorite double casting with his pitch-perfect Walmart manager.
All of these various devices: the chapters, projections, and asides add to the enjoyment of the evening, but we don’t really explore the pleasure or need for reading or what art can do to bind society together or drive it apart.
You would have to try very hard not to have a good time at The Book Club Play, but along with Zacarías other big regional hit, Native Gardens, it is eminently understandable if you wish there were more meat on the bones of her plays–especially with her enormous skill and choice of topics.
It’s fun, and I frequently laughed out loud. Two of my favorite lines were “Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian” and “It’s like ‘Lord of the Flies’ with wine and dip.” One is from Melville and one is from Zacarías.
The Book Club Play is running at Dorset Theatre Festival through 7/26.
