Review: BOOTYCANDY - A Very Tasty Treat With Substance

BOOTYCANDY/by Robert O'Hara/directed by Michael Matthews/Celebration Theatre @ the Lex/thru December 20, 2015

The Celebration Theatre has picked a perfect production, the Los Angeles premiere of playwright Robert O'Hara's BOOTYCANDY, to inaugurate their new home @ the Lex. Entertaining, and with prominent reoccurring social themes of gay acceptance and upended racial stereotyping. Michael Matthews sure-handedly directs his extremely talented cast of five as they portray multiple characters in what appears to be separately titled skits, but cleverly morphs into a full-on play with beginning, middle and end. And what an end!

BOOTYCANDY opens with Anton Peeples as a pubescent Sutter (with great spot-on Michael Jackson moves) asking his young mom (a saucy Travina Springer) the definition of sexual terms he's heard in school. The definition of 'Bootycandy,' if you don't already know will be revealed in the first five minutes. Peeples' simply winning as the youngster Sutter and, later as the grown-up Sutter visiting his grandmother in a nursing home. If this very tender, funny and loving scene (titled "IPHONE") of Peeple and Michael A. Shepperd as his grandma doesn't pull on your heartstrings, you must be made of stone. The the earlier "Dreamin in Church," the versatile Shepperd commands the stage in a totally different persona as a fire and brimstone preacher giving a most inspiring and most unexpected on-fire and flaming sermon to his congregation. Shepperd expertly modulates his loud pious bluster with quiet whispering for maximum emphasis. Yeahhh!!!

Springer and Julanne Chidi Hill kill in their two main scenes together. First in "Genitalia," as two women gossiping on the phone; well, actually, four different women talking on back-to-back phone calls. Springer and Hill utilize distinct posture changes and varied vocal inflections, wearing split/right & left costumes and wigs (Kudos to costumer Allison Dillard) to depict two different women each. All switching with a click of the phone button. Very seamlessly done! Their other moment to shine together happens in "Ceremony," an UN-commitment ceremony where they pledge their eternal hate and everlasting disgust for each other. Brilliant 'reversal' writing by O'Hara!

Cooper Daniels' quite authentic as Roy, the sometime object of Sutter's affections or attentions. But it's Daniels' spotlight to grab in "The Last Play" when he inhabits a bar pick-up, a desperate lost soul, most likely off his meds, craving for human contact. Daniels' simply heartbreaking!

In "Conference," Daniels, as a naive straight white male, moderates an otherwise all-black panel consistently asking foot-in-the-mouth questions based on preconceived stereotypical beliefs. A very telling lesson on presumptions, incorrect or not.

An all-around great scene has to be "Happy Meal" at the family dinner table with the high-octane, delicious rantings of Hill as the mother, the teenage growing pains whinings of Peeple and the subtle eye-rolls of Shepperd. Only tears of laughter here!

Smooth choreographed set changes by the cast of Stephen Joshua Thompson's wonderfully adaptable set and set pieces backed with a wall of multi-rows of lights reminiscent of Dreamgirls or the Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial. Matthew Brian Denman's lighting design ingeniously has the wall of light represent a church's crucifix, a fashion runway or a Pepsi commercial backdrop.

Worthy addition to the Celebration's already bulging resume of critically acclaimed shows.

www.celebrationtheatre.com

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