Lucy Shelby and Ariel Lauryn form a wacky comedy duo in WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT (photo by Christopher Duggan)
The Tank
151 West 46th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves., eighth floor
May 12-14, 21-23, $15, 7:00
www.thetanknyc.org
Ariel Lauryn and Lucy Shelby make quite the comic duo in their screwball farce Whether We Like It or Not. The two-woman show was first presented at Dell’Arte International and then at the New Orleans Fringe and now can be seen in an updated version as part of the Tank’s Flint & Tinder season, a program that focuses on physical, risk-taking theater. In the chaotic sixty-minute comedy, Lauryn, as straight man Stella, and Shelby, as the campy Blanche — yes, they are childhood friends named after the two main female characters from Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire — channel such dynamic duos as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Lucy and Ethel, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Carol Burnett and Vicky Lawrence. It’s Stella’s birthday, and Blanche has a big surprise for her — she has gathered many of her friends, relatives, and professional colleagues in a black-box theater where the two women are going to do a reading of Marsha Norman’s ’night, Mother. Of course, Stella is not quite prepared for a This Is Your Life moment, especially with her hated ex-husband in the audience, as well as a high-profile Broadway producer. But Blanche, the spokesperson for a national insurance company, is putting on the show to make sure that Stella continues her acting career; she suspects that Stella might otherwise give up on what she loves doing so much and return home to Indiana, wagging her tail between her legs. However, Stella has no such plan, refusing to put the kibosh on her dream, and as the evening goes on, the two women make some rather serious revelations that threaten their friendship.
Lauryn and Shelby, who created the show together, do a terrific job of improvising as they slip on props, trip over dialogue, and use a wrong name; no matter what happens onstage, they just keep going in impressive fashion. Also fashionably impressive are their glittering costumes, which evoke Monroe and Russell. Although the show is not interactive, it does have immersive qualities, as Stella and Blanche identify specific audience members as characters from their lives, either from their hometown or from the New York City theater community. At one performance, when a cell phone in the seats went off, it turned out to belong to the audience member they had labeled “Oscar,” an agent, and Shelby cleverly worked in an ad lib about how he should answer it because it might be about a job for her. It’s all rather silly yet endearing, occasionally overly ridiculous and sometimes inexpert, but still a lot of fun. Plus, there’s cheap popcorn, beer, and wine available before the show to get you in the right mood for all the wacky shenanigans.