REVIEW: At The Wedding (Studio)
It must be wedding season here in the District.
Between Company barnstorming in Foggy Bottom, to friends of mine getting engaged, we now have Studio’s latest, At The Wedding by Bryna Turner. This comedy with errors covers Carlo, a thorny vagrant who’s arrived to crash her ex’s wedding to a man (who nobody seems to find interesting.) Add an open bar to the mix and you get a sourly queered spin on the wedding crasher trope, to which I was warm to the approach but found the execution grating.
Book
We’re stuck with Carlo as she obnoxiously winds her way through a series of connected vignettes involving guests at her ex-girlfriend Eva’s wedding. A bridesmaid with a never-explored beef, Eva’s mom, and a naïve man are among these, which ranges greatly in both use and entertainment. There is a minor B-plot revolving around Carlo, the aforementioned man Eli, and Leigh, the spunky alt-rock graphic designer, which holds some intrigue. (Unfortunately, it persists the undying trope of promiscuous bisexual too much for my tastes.) Easily the best scenes are involving Eva, especially in her initial reckoning with Carlo about midway through. There’s a tense fallout that dances around whatever it was that broke them up —it’s hinted at alcoholism, but there could be more to it — which is nice at first but is left unresolved. By the time we reach the finale, it’s like we as the audience are supposed to accept that “whatever it was, she’s moved on! Yay!” but…I disagree with that. I would have appreciated some self-realization of flaw before just sucking it up and making do. Now, I will be frank: I’m probably not the audience for this. I brought a queer woman as my plus-one to this who left thinking this was one of the best plays she’d ever seen, and likened it to the kind of cozy movie she’d watch on a rainy Saturday. I can agree that Bryna Turner’s material would probably translate well to screen, but it didn’t speak to me in its current form. Your mileage may vary. 3/10
Acting
I wasn’t too compelled overall. Holly Twyford as Eva’s mom Maria is as boisterously great as you can expect from the three-time Hayes award winner. Leigh, portrayed by Cameron Silliman, is magnetic despite their wasted character, and Yesenia Iglesias’ Eva is grounded to the point that it actually makes you feel good about having bought a ticket. Dina Thomas’ Carlo was brash and fractious, which some audience members enjoyed, but it only left me loathing her character. 2/10
Production
Tom Story directs this well enough. The production sucks you into the doldrums of wallflowerdom via Carlo’s asides, and Luciana Stecconi’s semi-rural florals evoke this isolation with its empty center stage and barren wings. The sound design by Jane Shaw and sleek costuming by Danielle Preston are hedonistic but can only do so much to bring the party. 4/10
Viz
The program art features the “elephant” pretty prominently for a plot device that doesn’t really have much staying power. Though, the pre-show staging is evocative of millennial farmhouse chic with its late-aughts dance tunes playing. It’s still a show that doesn’t really tell you what it’s really about until the halfway mark. 3/10
Verdict
At The Wedding is malignant, relying on predominantly weak performances that can’t do anything for a shallow book. It’s a production I can only find redemption in via the emphatic points of view for those portrayed in the text. 12/40
