Sex Please We're Sixty
I had the opportunity to see Sex Please We're Sixty at Richmond Hill Theatre.
This was a play about a man in his sixties who lives next to Rose's bed and breakfast so that he can have sexual trysts with multiple women. In the time of the MeToo movement, this play is walking a tightrope. The laughs, in theory, could have fallen hollow, depending on the actor's depiction of the lead role. The man, Bud Davis, isn't threatening about it. He's charming. He's suave. He has an easygoing way with the ladies. Played by Harold Truitt, the play opens with him on the computer looking for check-ins. The bed and breakfast proprietor, Miss Stancliff, played by Michaela Giebel-Moore.
It is good that Harold Truitt is cast as Bud the Stud. At this particular moment in time, we need a jovial actor with a light tough to take on the role of Bud the Stud.
A cad, a confirmed playboy bachelor, a tomcat like Bud needs a foil. He gets that with Henry. Played by Patrick Kelley, is a retired chemist who only has eyes for Mrs. Stancliff. He doesn't have the mojo, the self-confidence, the magnetism that Bud has mastered to bring the women guests into his bed... or, more to the point, gets himself invited into theirs. Stancliff continues to decline Henry's advances. Henry's history of attempting to propose to Mrs. Stancliff goes back about twenty years.
The arrival of a romance novelist named Victoria Ambrose, played by Suzanne Rakestraw, brings an outsider's point of view to both Bud and Henry. As Henry is still just trying to convince Miss Stancliff, a woman in her fifties, to be his girlfriend, he can only claim the title of gentleman caller. Victoria points out to him how gentleman caller is a nineteenth century term... Perhaps he's so old fashioned he can't quite express what he feels in words she understands. Or maybe he's just not confident.
Of course, Bud the Stud is under the assumption that the manuscript that Victoria Ambrose is writing, a steamy and sultry romance, is actually about him. He reads it on the table and is just sure she is describing him.
I mentioned that Henry is a foil for Bud. No, they don't compete for the same girl or anything. But Henry has developed a new pill, called Venusia, which is meant for women who have reached the age of menopause. If women take the pill, it raises their libido and makes them desire sex.
Henry asks one of the bed and breakfast guests, a lady by the name of Hillary Hudson to serve as a trial patient. Played by Terri Nelson, Hudson agrees to serve as a test subject for the medicine, in the name of science.
That's when things get interesting. Bud the Stud drops one of the Venesia pills into a glass of iced tea. I think he was trying to help Henry out, by placing it in Miss Stancliff's tea.
But Bud doesn't know who actually ends up drinking the tea.
Anyhow, another woman shows up, Charmaine Beauregard. Played by Jessica Moore, Charmaine is a lush, and she's just waiting for Bud the Stud to come in and ravish her. As we approach the half of the play, Bud is being sought after by Victoria Ambrose, Hillary Hudson, and Southern Belle sexpot Charmaine. He runs from room to room to room, checking on his condom supply, popping Viagara pills. See, the blue Venesia pill, it appears to have been in tea ingested by all of them. Three women are seeking the love, affection, and sexual prowess of Bud at once. He puts the sex in sextagenerian.
Bertold Brecht wrote that theatre exists as either a hammer or a mirror. It's a hammer, like when Friedrich Durrenmatt wrote The Visit, or Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll's House, or Moises Kaufmann wrote The Laramie Project. This was the type of stuff we did at Augustana College. Or it can be a mirror, just showing society as society is and does. And we can choose to be the hammer. For example, Picnic, Dangerous Liaisons, or Allison's House, also products of our theatre department, which didn't prognosticate, but they let audiences see a slice of life and react.
But Sex Please We're Sixty operates entirely outside the parameters of Bertold Brecht. I don't think of it as a hammer or a mirror. It's an escape from reality. It's something I could go into, watch, and laugh so hard for two hours, after having to complete a teacher's inservice on school shooting. This was an obligatory and informative teacher's institute I had Friday. But I was glad to leave the world's problems behind and watch a play about a horny sixty-five year old man and the women who are at least as horny, and wind up running the cassanova ragged.
At the opening of the second act, we see Bud the Stud enter with a walker. "Too much of a good thing!" I heard a male audience member in the front row, opposite my side, yell out. At that point, I lost it. I laughed harder at that unscripted aside than any other moment in the play.
The big caveat to the Venesia? It doesn't work the same on men. Oh no. It gives them menopausal symptons. When the women find out they may have drank the kool-aid, er, had their libido artificially kick in by accidentally taking one of the pills, they decide to exact their revenge on the men. They switch Bud the Stud's Viagara with the Venesia. And it causes the men to have instant menopausal symptoms, including sensitivity, hot flashes, and outbursts of crankiness. This makes the last fifteen minutes of the play the most rewarding.
Let me be clear. The pacing of the play was not the problem. It moved fast. And it had lots of good jokes. It made the audience laugh. It was escapist. Is it going to cure the illnesses? Is it going to solve the world's problems? Does it represent a mirror reflection of reality as it is? Well, no. This was a bawdy sex comedy. It is a community theatre quality piece meant to play in theatres in Geneseo, Illinois, or Cape Girardeau, Missouri, or Portage, Wisconsin, or Grinnell, Iowa. This isn't a masterpiece. It's not groundbreaking. It's not going to rewrite the laws of attraction. It's just a fluffy piece of comedy that allows me to see that everyone actually has a blue sense of humor. Gauging by the clientele, modest, normal theatre goers, and how hard they laughed at jokes that were lust-filled and explicit, I can see that we all have that side to us. So bravo to the play for allowing we the audience to collectively let our guard down and laugh in a communal setting at potty-mouth, dithering sex jokes.
I'm writing a sitcom called The Cubbies. I just wrote the fifth episode, and have started on a sixth. After being a harmless, by the book situation comedy set in the 1980's, I turn up the sex in these last two episodes of the season. What I felt was going to extremes for my own writing, I now feel, after seeing Sex Please We're Sixty, it's all in a day's work to throw in the sex.
Two and a half stars.
This was a play about a man in his sixties who lives next to Rose's bed and breakfast so that he can have sexual trysts with multiple women. In the time of the MeToo movement, this play is walking a tightrope. The laughs, in theory, could have fallen hollow, depending on the actor's depiction of the lead role. The man, Bud Davis, isn't threatening about it. He's charming. He's suave. He has an easygoing way with the ladies. Played by Harold Truitt, the play opens with him on the computer looking for check-ins. The bed and breakfast proprietor, Miss Stancliff, played by Michaela Giebel-Moore.
It is good that Harold Truitt is cast as Bud the Stud. At this particular moment in time, we need a jovial actor with a light tough to take on the role of Bud the Stud.
A cad, a confirmed playboy bachelor, a tomcat like Bud needs a foil. He gets that with Henry. Played by Patrick Kelley, is a retired chemist who only has eyes for Mrs. Stancliff. He doesn't have the mojo, the self-confidence, the magnetism that Bud has mastered to bring the women guests into his bed... or, more to the point, gets himself invited into theirs. Stancliff continues to decline Henry's advances. Henry's history of attempting to propose to Mrs. Stancliff goes back about twenty years.
The arrival of a romance novelist named Victoria Ambrose, played by Suzanne Rakestraw, brings an outsider's point of view to both Bud and Henry. As Henry is still just trying to convince Miss Stancliff, a woman in her fifties, to be his girlfriend, he can only claim the title of gentleman caller. Victoria points out to him how gentleman caller is a nineteenth century term... Perhaps he's so old fashioned he can't quite express what he feels in words she understands. Or maybe he's just not confident.
Of course, Bud the Stud is under the assumption that the manuscript that Victoria Ambrose is writing, a steamy and sultry romance, is actually about him. He reads it on the table and is just sure she is describing him.
I mentioned that Henry is a foil for Bud. No, they don't compete for the same girl or anything. But Henry has developed a new pill, called Venusia, which is meant for women who have reached the age of menopause. If women take the pill, it raises their libido and makes them desire sex.
Henry asks one of the bed and breakfast guests, a lady by the name of Hillary Hudson to serve as a trial patient. Played by Terri Nelson, Hudson agrees to serve as a test subject for the medicine, in the name of science.
That's when things get interesting. Bud the Stud drops one of the Venesia pills into a glass of iced tea. I think he was trying to help Henry out, by placing it in Miss Stancliff's tea.
But Bud doesn't know who actually ends up drinking the tea.
Anyhow, another woman shows up, Charmaine Beauregard. Played by Jessica Moore, Charmaine is a lush, and she's just waiting for Bud the Stud to come in and ravish her. As we approach the half of the play, Bud is being sought after by Victoria Ambrose, Hillary Hudson, and Southern Belle sexpot Charmaine. He runs from room to room to room, checking on his condom supply, popping Viagara pills. See, the blue Venesia pill, it appears to have been in tea ingested by all of them. Three women are seeking the love, affection, and sexual prowess of Bud at once. He puts the sex in sextagenerian.
Bertold Brecht wrote that theatre exists as either a hammer or a mirror. It's a hammer, like when Friedrich Durrenmatt wrote The Visit, or Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll's House, or Moises Kaufmann wrote The Laramie Project. This was the type of stuff we did at Augustana College. Or it can be a mirror, just showing society as society is and does. And we can choose to be the hammer. For example, Picnic, Dangerous Liaisons, or Allison's House, also products of our theatre department, which didn't prognosticate, but they let audiences see a slice of life and react.
But Sex Please We're Sixty operates entirely outside the parameters of Bertold Brecht. I don't think of it as a hammer or a mirror. It's an escape from reality. It's something I could go into, watch, and laugh so hard for two hours, after having to complete a teacher's inservice on school shooting. This was an obligatory and informative teacher's institute I had Friday. But I was glad to leave the world's problems behind and watch a play about a horny sixty-five year old man and the women who are at least as horny, and wind up running the cassanova ragged.
At the opening of the second act, we see Bud the Stud enter with a walker. "Too much of a good thing!" I heard a male audience member in the front row, opposite my side, yell out. At that point, I lost it. I laughed harder at that unscripted aside than any other moment in the play.
The big caveat to the Venesia? It doesn't work the same on men. Oh no. It gives them menopausal symptons. When the women find out they may have drank the kool-aid, er, had their libido artificially kick in by accidentally taking one of the pills, they decide to exact their revenge on the men. They switch Bud the Stud's Viagara with the Venesia. And it causes the men to have instant menopausal symptoms, including sensitivity, hot flashes, and outbursts of crankiness. This makes the last fifteen minutes of the play the most rewarding.
Let me be clear. The pacing of the play was not the problem. It moved fast. And it had lots of good jokes. It made the audience laugh. It was escapist. Is it going to cure the illnesses? Is it going to solve the world's problems? Does it represent a mirror reflection of reality as it is? Well, no. This was a bawdy sex comedy. It is a community theatre quality piece meant to play in theatres in Geneseo, Illinois, or Cape Girardeau, Missouri, or Portage, Wisconsin, or Grinnell, Iowa. This isn't a masterpiece. It's not groundbreaking. It's not going to rewrite the laws of attraction. It's just a fluffy piece of comedy that allows me to see that everyone actually has a blue sense of humor. Gauging by the clientele, modest, normal theatre goers, and how hard they laughed at jokes that were lust-filled and explicit, I can see that we all have that side to us. So bravo to the play for allowing we the audience to collectively let our guard down and laugh in a communal setting at potty-mouth, dithering sex jokes.
I'm writing a sitcom called The Cubbies. I just wrote the fifth episode, and have started on a sixth. After being a harmless, by the book situation comedy set in the 1980's, I turn up the sex in these last two episodes of the season. What I felt was going to extremes for my own writing, I now feel, after seeing Sex Please We're Sixty, it's all in a day's work to throw in the sex.
Two and a half stars.