Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
Tags
Article IndexColman Domingo writes and stars in a new comedy about death and healing
BY MICHAEL SOMMERS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
OFF BROADWAY REVIEW
Colman Domingo is a ball-of-fire performer who is equally terrific in musicals like “Passing Strange” and dramas like “Blood Knot.” Domingo lately has been working as a playwright as well and he depicts the central figure of his new play “Wild with Happy,” which opened on Tuesday at the Public Theater.
Domingo plays Gil, a gay, not terribly successful 40-ish New York actor who deals – not at all well – with the death of his mother, Adelaide, who he neglected due to self-absorption over his lousy career and worse love life.
Despite the kindly ministrations of Terry, a nice, handsome mortician in Philadelphia – talk about someone being laid out, and we don’t mean the mother -- Gil opts for cremation and no church service. Gil’s mix of reasons includes no money, a significant loathing of church and a guilty desire to get it all done as quickly as possible.
Gil’s decision puts him at odds with his volatile Aunt Glo, a motor-mouthed matron right out of a Tyler Perry flick, who denounces his cremation plans (“Black people don’t do that!”) even as she strips her late sister’s clothes closet. Then arrives Mo, Gil’s madly flamboyant best chum, who decides to take Gil and Adelaide’s ashes on a healing expedition to – well, let’s not give away more of the story except to mention that Terry and Aunt Glo follow them in hot pursuit.
Oh, and a “Cinderella” theme seeps into the 100-minute comedy’s later passages.
Wilder in its contents and style than actually happy in spirits, “Wild with Happy” involves frequent flashbacks that include a holy-roller church session that explains Gil’s dislike for liturgics. Something of a comical nightmare – with a happy conclusion – the play’s abundant humor is derived from its outsized characters and torrential monologues.
Although Domingo has some trouble landing his high-flying story, which appears to end several times before it finally does, he certainly provides an entertaining look at a conflicted guy trying to cope with one of life’s saddest passages.
