Review: Wit and Verve in Spanish Classic, FRIENDSHIP BETRAYED

For a perfect evening's entertainment, let's begin with a big city and a cozy circle of single girls on the lookout for the Man of Their Dreams-or a reasonable, one-night facsimile. Stir in the plot elements of true love thwarted, women stealing men behind each other's backs; sprinkle liberally with sweet revenge on the worst frenemy ever, and you've got the recipe for a great romantic comedy.

New York? Los Angeles? Of course not, silly, we're talking about Madrid, circa 1630. We forget that the problems of modern romance go way back, at least to the very beginning of the Modern Era - which, so the eggheads keep reminding us, go back at least to Shakespeare's day. And we also forget, at our peril, that strong-willed women of means have always been with us, and have always found ways to get exactly what they want, when they want it.

The most delicious part of WSC Avant Bard's current offering, Friendship Betrayed, is that it was written by one of Spain's most famous, independent-minded women, Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor (nice coincidence that name, given the other more famous Sotomayor in our neighborhood). Her novels were best-sellers back in her day, and her personal take on "Sex and The City", although 400 years old and set in Spain's Golden Age, has an utterly contemporary feel.

To heighten the contemporary nature of much of the play's situations, Director Kari Ginsburg has smartly set the action in the Roaring 1920's, that other era when women of means were discovering ways to have as much fun as the men were having. The promiscuity and back-stabbing should be quite familiar to audiences today, and it's truly delicious to realize that things really haven't changed that much. Perhaps because Friendship Betrayed was a bit too frank in its portrayal of willful, happily fulfilled women, the play languished on the library shelves and remained unpublished for years; thanks to a ground-breaking translation by Catherine Larson, we can rest assured that this drama should have a substantial stage life.

Ginsburg has assembled a cracker-jack cast of leading ladies and dopey men-in-waiting, giving us a briskly-paced tour of the sex lives of the rich and famous. Megan Dominy leads off with her star turn as Marcia, a girl as level-headed as she is romantic, whose fascination with Liseo nearly leads her astray. James Finley-who also had a hand in designing the set-cuts a dashing figure as Liseo here. Although he appears at first to be a standard-issue jerk, breaking hearts and seducing innocent maidens to their doom, playwright Maria de Zayas makes a point of revealing Liseo's dumb-as-a-post side as well, which gives Finley's character a bit more depth than one might expect. Meanwhile his valet Leon, played with earthy charm by Connor J. Hogan, offers plenty of comic relief.

Opposing Marcia's dreams of romance with Liseo is her (supposedly) best friend Fenisa, a woman so worldly-wise and experienced with men that she thinks nothing of stealing Liseo's affections away from Marcia, just because she can. Melissa Marie Hmelnicky offers us a positively wicked Fenisa, one who is as assured as she is vain. Rounding out this girls' circle are Laura, Liseo's ex-fiancée, and Marcia's equally sensible cousin Belisa. There are romances in the offing here (as well as one or two on the skids); some of the courtship is performed via flamenco and tango, but the lines are all zingers.

One of the features of Maria de Zayas' dialogue-and one shared with plays written in both Spain and Shakespeare's England-was the aside, which enabled audiences to know exactly what a character was about to do and why. This can work famously, because it helps the characters to get us on their side, no matter how selfish and petty their behavior. But Ginsburg, at several points, has characters appealing to different banks of seats simultaneously-which in a Mozart opera makes perfect sense, but here tends to muddy things, because you literally can't hear what the other guy/gal on the other side of the stage has just said. Mozart made sure everyone had their say individually before they were harmonized; you don't get the same advantage here.

Rhonda Key and April Chicko have teamed up nicely with period dresses and hairstyles, and sound designer Veronica J. Lancaster offers us a nice selection of clever romantic numbers from the 20's and 30's to set the free-wheeling mood. This is a swinging good time, and yet one more reminder how little things will ever change in matters of love.

Production Photo: (From left:) Alani Kravitz (Belissa), Megan Dominy (Marcia), Daven Ralston (Laura). Photo by C. Stanley Photography.

Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes with no intermission.

Friendship Betrayed runs September 10-October 11 at Gunston Theatre Two 2700 South Lang Street, Arlington, VA. Tickets are available online at AvantBard.Ticketleap.com or by calling 703-418-4808.

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