The Politics of Art & Authenticity

The moment Wild With Happy started I was lost. It started so fast I almost didn’t notice.  The protagonist stood in front of the stage talking a mile a minute.  I became twice as lost when, I was sure, he started acting as a child and they had the church scene.  Yet when I finally figured out what was going on I was amazed, intrigued, and found myself trying to calm myself after laughing a little too hard.

At the moment I cannot find a better word to describe the set other than fascinating.  They seemed to transition from being a church, to a casket shop, to a bedroom, to the park, to two cars on the road, to a hotel room at Disney World with ease.  A lot of this was thanks to the coffins.  At first they confused me.  Gil stated he was leaving the casket shop, so where was he? He was in a room but there were still coffins there.  I thought they were slacking off in leaving the coffins lying around however I was completely mistaken.  I was surprised when the first coffin opened up to a dress, another to a park bench, and the rest to cars.

Without a doubt the acting was something else.  They all were able to portray the character’s emotions to the audience.  In fact, I almost hadn’t noticed that the woman who played Adelaide also played Glo.  I only noticed at the end when Gil was remembering a time when he and Adelaide went to Disney in the past and Glo turned around and stood beside him and her voice completely softened.

Overall I thought it was very humorous.  There were a lot of names dropped however I did not understand all the references.  Still, there were many other things to be cracking up over, most of which was thanks to two characters who gave more than enough comic relief to the play, Mo and Glo.  Aunt Glo at one point while telling Gil how much she hates when relatives come and take the clothes of the deceased directly after they die was taking all of Adelaide’s clothing.  After asking Terry for a glass of water she doesn’t return the water but just takes the glass.  Also what she said also seemed bizarre at times.  For example, at the very beginning she commented about scaling the side of the building just to get into the room.  Mo on the other hand had his own theme song when entering for the first time, he was always flirting with random guys somewhere off in the distance, and made many jokes attempting to cheer up his friend.

My favorite part of this entire play had to be the ending.  First the Cinderella came out and danced and Gil and Mo gained a Cinderella suite and were soon joined by Aunt Glo and Terry.  During the fireworks outside the ashes were released.  It was a beautiful scene, or maybe I’m just saying that because I naturally love anything that has to do with fireworks.  Then the greatest ending occurred. Terry got down on one knee to return Gil’s boot that he accidentally left behind.

At the end when they actually said “wild with happy” I felt like Peter Griffin.  In one episode I recall him saying something about loving when they say the title of something in the work.  However, it was a little unexpected.  The title Wild With Happy made me think this play would be entirely different.  Yet this does not change the fact that it was still an outstanding performance and well written play.

Source

http://www.playbill.com/images/photo/c/o/colmanopen200.jpg