IMMEDIATE FAMILY

This show doesn’t need a lot of discussion from me. If you like to be laugh and have fun, go see Immediate Family at the Mark Taper Forum, while you have the opportunity. Period. But if you need to know why, keep reading.

When I see a show at a theatre, I just want to be entertained.  I don’t necessarily need to be educated, or dazzled by someone’s talent, and especially not depressed nor disgusted, as many productions are wont to do nowadays.  I just want to have a good time.  There’s enough of all the rest in everyday life.

And entertained I was a few nights ago at the opening of Immediate Family!  There wasn’t a down moment in this fast-paced play.  I love an evening like that!

To me, the best feeling in the world is laughter.  [Note: This was interesting to me: Right after I wrote that sentence, I took a break and mindlessly surfed the web for a bit, and, just by chance, came across a quote from my idol, Audrey Hepburn, which read, “I love people who make me laugh.  I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh.   It cures a multitude of ills.  It’s probably the most important thing in a person.” How about that for validation of my premise?!]

And Immediate Family provides laughter, in spades.  (And Spades is actually a card game that the cast mentions in the show, while playing a spirited game of whist!)

This play is so quick and clever and non-stop that I didn’t have time to jot down even one little note during the performance.  It’s an hour and a half of pure fun, with no downtime.  And the story actually means something, too!  I was very impressed with the whole production.

I so don’t want to ruin the storyline for you.  Going in, I didn’t know one thing about it, at all, (perhaps because, at just three years old, it’s a new-ish play,) and it was perfect that way.  (Why other reviewers have to tell you the whole story is beyond me!  We get it–you paid attention!  Now, stop ruining the discovery for the rest of us!)

So, what to say about it, what to say.  I love that the action takes place over just two days.  But it accomplishes a lot in those ninety minutes. And with just one stationary set, they have scenes going in three different locations, some at the same time!

All six actors are first-rate, and the direction, by Cosby Show mom Phylicia Rashad, is spot-on.  John Iacovelli’s set, the first floor of an upper middle class home in Chicago’s Hyde Park, is perfect; it’s totally utilitarian while being so attractive.  I especially loved the little peek of the backyard that we on the right side could admire in full.

But, even though the sextet gives great life to the humorous lines, I have to give the most credit to the clever script by Paul Oakley Stovall, where the excellence begins. He based his work on his own experiences as a gay man in a black family, which is known to be a usually difficult scenario.  (I’m sure that many people didn’t already know that that was the situation prior to a few months ago, but viewers of this season’s mad hit, Empire, are probably aware of it now.) How it plays out in Immediate Family is both probable and satisfying. And hilarious.

There was only one slight problem with the whole thing; my pal and I didn’t know who all the characters were to each other for a long while.  I know that staged works often don’t like to spell relationships out for the audience, preferring to let us just discover them along the journey, but this one was hard to catch on to.  I was sitting a lot further back than I usually do, (which actually provided an excellent vantage point,) so maybe we missed some words at the beginning, which would have explained what was going on. But at first, we thought the main female was the young guy’s mother.  Then perhaps his auntie.  It turned out she was his older authoritative sister, and I think it would have helped if we had known that from the start.

On a much lesser note, those seated close to the stage, or with good opera glasses, may have noticed the details of the prominently-displayed portrait of the deceased parents in the living room.  I’m assuming it was there to let us know the heritage of the fam.  But it was a tad weird. While the father was clearly a black man, the matriarch looked Asian!  I kept going back to check it out again because I thought that was going to be part of the story.  But it wasn’t. Even though I have a feeling it’s someone’s actual mother, if they don’t want her uncertain ethnicity to distract us, they may want to replace it for the rest of the run.  I doubt they will, but I’m just sayin’.

But those last two notes are negligible. No matter your own ethnicity, age, sexual leanings, hometown, or anything else; if you like to laugh, just go see this show, and enjoy!

Immediate Family running through June 7, 2015
Mark Taper Forum 135 N. Grand Ave.  213-972-4400 www.centertheatregroup.org