Theatre in Review: Wild With Happy (The Public Theater)

	Colman Domingo. Photo: Joan Marcus

Wild With Happy is a comedy about a man's attempts at disposing of his late mother's ashes, and the oddest thing about Colman Domingo's play is how strenuously it tries to live up to that outrageous premise. The protagonist, Gil, is introduced in a state of high dudgeon, practically spitting his contempt in our faces. We then proceed to an African-American church service -- completed with an enormous crucifix embedded in flowers -- that is conducted in a state of advanced hyperventilation, complete with organ accompaniment. Two men make love in the back room of a funeral parlor. There is an extended comic argument about the suitability of cremation for black people. ("You don't do that unless the person was burned or mutilated or too fat to fit in the coffin.") When all else fails, the author introduces a drag queen whose daytime civilian wear includes an asymmetrical haircut and an enormous fur vest that looks like it was borrowed from Fred Flintstone. (He also talks his attendance at a "tranny brunch.") The action climaxes in a car chase that ends at Cinderella's Suite at Disney World. In fact, if everyone associated with Wild With Happy weren't so busy trying to land boffo laughs, their show might be a great deal better. But they're so hell-bent on mining the material for every last bit of wackiness -- before arriving at the inevitable sentimental epiphany -- that the effort shows, and badly.

As written, Gil has achieved the trifecta of perfect middle-age loserdom. He's a largely unemployed New York actor, he's pushing 40 with no boyfriend in sight, and he is still at the mercy of Adelaide, his mother, a charming nutcase who dresses in eye-searing multicolor outfits and believes in the power of magic and hexes. (One of her favorite dreams involves her, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Natalie Cole, shopping for doorknobs.) Although we see Adelaide from time to time in flashbacks, she is already dead when the play starts. Frustrated with his life and guilt-ridden over his inattention to Adelaide, Gil returns to Philadelphia to handle the disposal of her tiny estate. Alienated from the church and unable to cope with his mother's death, he decrees there will be no religious ceremony or burial; instead, Adelaide will be cremated.

This decision cues the entrance of Aunt Glo, Adelaide's sister and Domingo's most confident comic creation, especially as brought to furious life by Sharon Washington. Dressed in a leopard-print velour tracksuit, possessed of a conversational style like a Pentecostal preacher addressing a platoon of sinners, and armed with a volley of withering opinions, she is fully prepared to do battle with Gil, whose chic wardrobe, Yale degree, and chosen career are, in her view, so many affectations. "Hold the phone, hang up, and dial again," she shouts, getting ready to instruct her nephew in the ways of black people's burial rites -- which, she insists, stretch back to the dawn of time. Blowing in like a Category 4 hurricane, she proceeds to denounce those intruders who eye the possessions of the dead "like vultures" while helping herself to the contents of Adelaide's closet, as well as her prescription medications. Whether denouncing the culture of social networking (her phone, she says, has a "CPPS" for "Colored People's Positioning System") or threatening the safety of the highway system with her unhinged driving technique, Aunt Glo is a hair-raising comic creation, and Washington's achievement is all the more impressive because she also doubles as the gentle fantasist Adelaide.

Most of Wild With Happy consists of Gil and Glo having at each other like a pair of angry cats, and the more Domingo repeats their arguments, the more the play runs out of steam. He eventually contrives to get them, and a couple of hangers-on, to Disney World, where fireworks, sentimental flashbacks, and teary reconciliations are on offer. ("My heart is broken," shouts Gil. "Let your heart be broken open," comes the response.) It doesn't help that Domingo lets this final scene go on and on; it could plausibly end two or three times before it finally does.

Especially considering the high-pitched nature of the material, Robert O'Hara's direction amps up the volume to an unnecessary degree. (Even Washington could tone it down here and there.) Wild With Happy is loaded with crowd-pleasing touches, but nobody on stage appears to trust them; at times, the show is practically shoved down the audience's collective throat. As the author, Domingo should understand the role of Gil better than anybody, but he waits far too long to give him any humanizing touches; his brittle-to-the-breaking point performance is damagingly off-putting. Similarly, Maurice McRae struggles to inject some life into Mo's tired, wacky drag queen material. On the plus side, Korey Jackson has a nice, easy charm as the young funeral director who would rather be cleaning chakras for a living and has his eye on Gil.

Wild With Happy has, hands down, the most elaborate production design I've ever encountered in the Public's smallish LuEsther space. Clint Ramos' set design places the action in a funeral parlor where the coffins can be turned into closets, chaise longues, and car interiors. (His costumes are totally spot on, drawing clear distinctions between the characters). The final transformation, to Cinderella's Suite, is a knockout. Aaron Rhyne's inventive projections include pulsating stained-glass windows, a city park, and a map of the eastern seaboard that keeps track of the characters during the climactic chase. Japhy Weideman's lighting has a look for every sequence, whether real or fantasy. Lindsay Jones' sound design features a number of amusing effects and a canny use of pop music selections, but it's hard to understand why the actors are miked -- especially when they spend so much of the play shouting at us.

As Domingo's last piece, A Boy and His Soul, demonstrated, he is a gifted writer with a strong comic sense, but here it's difficult to escape the feeling that he is trying too hard. Wild With Happy has plenty of moments -- my favorite is when Adelaide, overhearing a phone conversation about a possible Craisin commercial, thinks Gil has been cast in A Raisin in the Sun. But really, everyone involved with it needs to relax. -- David Barbour