Whatever your feelings towards the rom com genre – love, hate, or intense ambivalence – the newest production from theatre company The People has something for everyone. Blazing through the zeitgeist, Grand Gesture is a careening fever dream of pop romance – from Edward Cullen’s vampiric egotism to Carrie Bradshaw’s self-scrutinising NYC bark – creators and directors Katrina Cornwell and Morgan Rose’s production has it all, and in spades. It’s not quite a critique, nor a homage, nor a retelling. Instead, Grand Gesture takes 14 culturally ubiquitous treatises of romance and wrangles it into a dense, messy hour of satire and spectacle.
As part of La Mama Theatre’s mini festival Love Fest, Grand Gesture cracks through the fragile façade of Hollywood love, picks up the pieces, and then smashes those again for good measure. Under the subtle breath of Lisa Mibus’s simple, elegant lighting, and Byron Scullin’s atmospheric sound design, a cast of eight take turns narrating and re-enacting warped fragments of famous romcoms, slipping from meet cutes to ditzy flirtations to dramatic denouements.
Though faces change, the tragically constant qualities of the two romantic leads are emphasised right from the get-go, characterised by bold signage. White, they say. Young, beautiful, handsome. Straight. The personal politics here are very straightforward – the alienation caused by mainstream norms of romance is horribly lonely. Thus, rigid patterns of gender and sexuality are tackled head on. A male protagonist would rather flirt with the disembodied limb of a female mannequin than another guy; a woman is quite literally manhandled into reciting the lines written for her. Race, however, is given barely a mention, and the all-white casting makes this omission particularly disappointing.
But satire is not the entire point, it seems. Though laughs come aplenty from the faux-sincere reconstructions of famed film scenes, and the incredulousness of a genre thick with schmaltz, it’s the utter madness of this pop pastiche that makes it both uniquely entertaining yet also, unnecessarily bewildering. A rapidly accelerating narration of 50 Shades of Grey leads to a frenetic wank race, all the while a bong is passed in the background. Monologues overlap, scenes overlap, the role of characters and narrators jump randomly from one person to the next. Out of nowhere comes a shower of colourful plastic balls.
While it’s with ample dexterity that the cast shifts between roles, it is hard to keep track. It’s particularly hard for everyone to leave an impression within the space of such a richly packed hour, especially with the gang starting off clad entirely in dull brown. That said, some performances still do shine. Joel Beasley, in a sudden, but fleeting monologue on loneliness and isolation captivates the crowd; Matilda Gibbs’ various female protagonists capture both a sense of the dramatic and of being imprisoned in a role. Joe Kenny is enrapturing as he croons out the Goo Goo Dolls’ ‘Iris’ in a spontaneous singalong.
Things get too maximalist, as the play descends further and further down the path of utter creative eccentricity. A couch on the side of the stage is repurposed as a fourth wall, as odd cast members take turns lounging and watching the scenes unravel, looking on with adulation, alienation, or plain horniness. But this whimsy, mostly mute aspect of the play adds little apart from the tiny kick of having a sliver of a meta-narrative. As the cast switch from narrator to performer to spectator, the running themes of the show all tangle up, and coherence is lost by way of artistic indulgence.
Indeed, Grand Gesture never adheres to any solid point, flittering instead about sharp edged critiques and pinpoint poignances without the benefit of a steady hand. But though there is no lingering message, within the play’s erratic heartbeat, it’s hard not to find something to love.