Review: The Ups and Downs of …Fornication

It's all just a little harmless sex, isn't it? At least that's how it starts in David Wally's latest bedroom romp Six Degrees of Fornication, running Thursdays at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks.  Monique, who is engaged to Ben, sleeps with Ryan, a singing telegram man and Lenore, her fiance's sister, while her fiancé Ben is sleeping with a closet prostitute named Melanie, who happens to be his sister Lenore's lesbian lover. Throw in a couple other random hookups and a lude moment with Melanie's father and there you have it. One hour and forty-five minutes of the most those awkward bedroom moments that we know all too well, and try all too hard to forget.

Writer-director David Wally is to be commended for his honest and unabashed look at sex, love, and the temporary moments of insanity that come with. True, the dialogue starts off a little shticky and the scenarios do get a little contrived and over-the-top, but the reality and the truth of the show creeps up on you. What starts off as seemingly ridiculous gradually starts to become uncomfortably familiar and the show's motto "Everybody lies in bed" resonates as both a comforting and unifying, yet frightening concept.

Since the show is double-cast, it seems pointless to single out individual performers, but as a whole the cast possesses the necessary amount of playfulness, heart, and well...balls...to pull off a show like this. Audiences should brace themselves to a unique blend of shock, riot, and poignancy that, like sex, if you're relaxed and open to it, makes for an overall fun night of theatre.

Six Degrees of Fornication runs Thursdays at 8pm until March 4 at the Whitefire Theatre (13500 Ventura Blvd) in Sherman Oaks. General admission is $20, $15 for groups of six or more. For reservations, call (866) 811-4111 or visit www.theatermania.com.

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