I have always wondered how Starbucks stays in business with so many people camping out there all day long while working on their laptops or waiting for a call, often purchasing just one drink while hogging a table for so long that others cannot possibly find a place to sit. Surely playwright Peter Lefcourt must have wondered the same thing, but chose to write off-beat comedy “Café Society” to take a deeper look at how modern technology has taken the place of personal communication in today’s society.
“Café Society” marks director Terri Hanauer’s sixth collaboration with playwright Lefcourt, and her insight into each character blooms onstage. “Like any good comedy, this play pokes fun on the surface, but the reality that underlies it is actually heartbreaking,” says Hanauer. “A coffee house used to be a place where you could go to meet people, to have a discussion. Now, when you walk into a Starbucks, there is absolutely no contact. Everyone is on their devices. Yet we all still have that hope, that desire, for human connection.”
It is very apparent that life in L.A. centers around the media as well as our need to stay in touch via personal technology, perhaps resulting from living in a city where most people spend the majority of their time alone in cars driving on clogged freeways and streets, often attempting to stay in touch with others via cell phone and not in person. Just think about how many times you have waited for someone crossing the street while they are texting on their cell phone, oblivious to the traffic around them. Don’t you just want to yell at them to put the thing down, look around and live in reality?
Totally reflecting how today’s society communicates with each other by not talking, much of the story in “Café Society” is told via projection design by Yee Eun Nam with the characters’ private texts and Facebook posts displayed on two large screens high above the coffee counter which alternate between the menu and the ever-changing tweets, text, posts, or laptop entries as they are executed by each of the five self-absorbed customers as they wait to get back to their oh-so-important lives while trying to work together to get out of an unexpected and very volatile situation in Starbucks happening through no fault of their own.
Eric Wentz portrays Jeff McHenry, a wannabe screenwriter who writes at Starbucks so he can study the “human condition” firsthand. But his real interest in hanging out there seems to be to pick up any new girl who happens to walk in. Chandra Lee Schwartz is marvelously brilliant as Kari Shaw, a hungry young actress desperate for her big break who stays in touch with her agent via phone as she changes costumes in the bathroom to get ready for her next audition. Every situation that arises is just another acting exercise for her as the tension mounts.
Susan Diol is high-octane realtor Marilyn Dresden who initially is there to meet a man from Bark.com, a dating website for dog owners. Her nerves take over as a deal seemingly falls apart, causing her to overheat and start removing various clothing items. Eric Myles Geller is her original blind date Bob, a libertarian personal wealth consultant filled with his own importance. His real focus is watching the stock market and trying to figure out how to save his clients’ money until he realizes he needs to try to save his own neck as well as the other customers.
Comic relief is provided by Ian Patrick Williams who chews the scenery as a delusional homeless man whose alternate personality just happens to be Anastasia, the Russian princess. His ability to completely change personalities and his physicality at the drop of a trigger word and then back again had the audience in stitches.
Nick Cobey plays Martin, the mysterious loner who triggers the connection between these five raging narcissists, while Donathan Walters plays Darnell, the barrista who tends to the neuroses of his patrons along with running the establishment. Actors Kailyn Leilani and Gabriel Romero make cameo appearances on video as news reporter Kelly Kahanahana and Police Captain Nunez, with their reports broadcast on the screen via the screenwriter’s laptop. All of the actors are very convincing in their characterizations throughout the show.
There are several brilliantly funny moments throughout the show, especially several dual phone conversations when the patrons seem to be speaking to each other when, in fact, they are each talking to someone else on their phones. Hanauer’s effective positioning of the actors during these conversations adds tremendously to the humor in each situation.
Comparisons are bound to be drawn between this new play and the well-known film “Dog Day Afternoon.” But “Café Society” is a delightful comedy with a huge dose of social commentary on the isolation created by each of us being so tied to our online social networks. And when everyone finally manages to work together to succeed in reaching their common goal of survival, I guarantee you will whistling along with them at the end of play!
The world premiere of “Café Society” is the latest off-beat comedy from Emmy Award-winning writer Peter Lefcourt, presented by Theatre Planners and directed by Terri Hanauer as a guest production at the Odyssey Theatre, located at 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. Performances continue through Oct. 11 on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 on Fridays and Sundays and $30 on Saturdays. For reservations and information, call 323-960-1055 or go to www.plays411.net/cafe.
