REVIEW : Troupe’s 1st show a 1-act , 1-woman romp on dating
Posted on Sunday, May 21, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/155284/
FAYETTEVILLE — Shopping for cute shoes is a fun endeavor, but you eventually have to settle on a pair for practical purposes. The same can be said for men, as Haley Walker finds out in Bad Dates.
The one-woman show, the inaugural production for TheatreSquared, premiered Friday at the Studio Theater at Nadine Baum Studios. Shows run through June 4, Thursdays through Sundays, at the intimate, black-box theater.
The title sounds like a negative notion from the start, dates destined to fail going into them. But the hope is that Haley, played by Rebecca Harris, can prove that wrong.
Haley is a divorced mother of a 12-year-old daughter who’s breaking out her shoes and outfits as she embarks on the dating scene again.
It’s a one-sided conversation, as she explains her way through several dates, all from the comfort and privacy — sort of — of her bedroom.
She changes clothes and changes shoes, trying to find the right outfit, the right version of herself that will be compatible with a man. Just one man. Is that really so hard, she wonders.
Harris, a Fayetteville native, held her own in this 90-minute show. Through five scenes with no intermission, she seemed to stumble on her lines only a few times, and she recovered well. She had good comedic timing and fed off the audience’s laughter, especially when recounting the scene she made at the restaurant on one date.
Harris played her part on a stage where she’s literally surrounded by shoes — running shoes, pumps, strappy heels — lined up around the edge of the carpet. Shoe boxes were stacked atop her night stand and her clothes wardrobe — all part of Haley’s 600-pair collection. Her love affair with shoes seems to have proved much more successful than the one with men.
Harris, 35, showed a wide range of emotions, like the nervous, chatty, hopefulness of anticipating a date. She giggled and reacted to the audience’s responses to her outfits and her commentary on her dates, just like she was talking to a good girlfriend.
But Harris allowed her character to mature and reached another level of anxiety and fear upon realizing she’s in over her head with the Romanian mob that’s laundering money through the restaurant where she works. A shoe box under her bed hides her own dark secret.
Harris’ film credits include How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Road. Television credits include Sex and the City, Law & Order and Life on the Line, the latter for cable’s Oxygen Network.
Bad Dates suits an adult audience, with the sexual humor, cursing and the instances when Haley strips down to her underwear and a slip when changing clothes. But only people who have been on a few dates would understand the material anyway.
Even at the end, when things get serious and Haley’s secret finds her, Harris catches the crowd off guard with deadpan humor. Her character eventually learns that most things resolve themselves.
After a standing ovation for her first professional performance in her hometown, Harris’ mom brought her flowers.