What happens when you mix one of the top directors in San Diego (Kirsten Brandt, Artistic Director of Sledgehammer Theatre), an extremely talented cast (Wendy Waddell, Allison Riley, Robin Christ, Jeannine Marquie, Melissa Fernandes), and a brilliantly comedic script by the Five Lesbian Brothers (Manhattan based Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey & Lisa Kron)? You get a highly entertaining evening at Diversionary Theater with Brave Smiles . . . Another Lesbian Tragedy.
Brave Smiles does have moments of tragedy but is so laced with highly effective humor that one accepts those moments with little remorse. Brandt moves her five actresses with motivation to the point of choreography.
Her actresses play eighteen different roles convincingly with the help of Shulamit Nelson's at-times-outrageous costumes and wigs. Fight choreographer Jeff Anthony Miller offers his expertise in several scenes. Brave Smiles is a true ensemble event, with cast members making quick character and costume changes within scenes.
Opening at a girl's school in 1936, run by the Nazi-strict Frau Ludmilla van Pussenheimer (Robin Christ, who also plays schoolgirl Will), and a sympathetic staff, the girls suffer the humiliations of the school and their joys of defying the rules. Jeannine Marquie is Babe, a student that can trip and fall over imaginary cracks in the cement. Melissa Fernandes as Damwell Maxwell, the last student to join the group, can cry at the drop of a blanket. Allison Riley as Millicent is often the strongest of the group. Wendy Waddell as Martha occasionally can be the voice of reason. We follow these sixteen-year-olds as they travel through life, some into the mid-50s. We laugh, at and with them, both in school and their adult years.
Marquie's Audrey (as in Hepburn) is delightful as she fends off reporters Waddell and Christ. Fernandes as the older, successful author Damwell, is properly pompous, yet loving. Riley is amusing as Pierre. All together, they create a fast moving, delightfully funny comedy.
David Lee Cuthbert's scenic design works well for the many locations called for in the script. A liner voyage and an aircraft flight are extremely creative, though probably not the work of Cuthbert. The varying moods and locations on the stage are greatly aided by Mike Durst's excellent lighting design. The play, rather a play with music, is enhanced by sound designer Paul Peterson's broad range of music, wildly varied effects, and the thematic underscoring of many lines. Lastly, in the second act, we are introduced to Nipper, a dog of many talents. Nipper performs well under the close guidance of the cast.
Brave Smiles allows us to experience the travails of a rigid private school environment and the subsequent effect it has on its charges. For just over two hours, we are invited into the private and public lives of the five students as well as their friends and enemies. It is quite a trip.
