Los Big Names (Variety)
A Jonathan Reinis Prods. presentation, in association with Z Space Studio, of a play in one act written and performed by Marga Gomez. Directed by David Schweizer. With: Marga Gomez.
By DENNIS HARVEY
Comedian-monologist Marga Gomez goes back to the well of her bizarrely colorful childhood in "Los Big Names," a new solo show that's always entertaining and frequently hilarious, if a tad unwieldy. Mix of preadolescent and grownup anecdotes, plus straight-up laughs, borderline surrealism and some disturbing material, is perhaps too ambitious to jell as a coherent whole. But generally sharp writing and this ingratiating performer's spot-on mimicry make for a wild personal journey that auds will be happy to ride along with.
Already established on both the mainstream and gay comedy circuits, Gomez commenced her scripted solo shows more than a decade ago with "A Line Around the Block" and "Memory Tricks" -- tributes, respectively, to her flamboyant showbiz father and mother. "Los Big Names" is more of the same but doesn't feel recycled as her parents are rich characters and the emphasis this time is on their mixed-bag influence on an only child who just wanted to be "normal" -- one thing this larger-than-life family could never be.
Puerto Rican father Willy Chevalier and Cuban mother Margarita (one name, "like Cher") were stars of the Latin theater circuit, appearing in live variety shows between features at Spanish-language movie palaces in their adopted Gotham and across the country. Dad was an emcee-singer-comedian, dyed-blonde Mom a statuesque dancer. They converged in a marital-strife sketch that eventually would find room for little Marga's stage debut.
Glamorous, large-living, temperamental and blissfully self-consumed, these two constituted a combustive duo, at best sporadically attentive to parenting's basic requirements. Things worsened for Marga when her parents divorced; Mom promptly orbited off into new marriages (and new children) while Dad self-pityingly saw both his personal and professional fortunes coast downhill.
Their only shared offspring still found herself playing go-between, shuttled between adults narcissistic and heedless enough to have demanded that she decide "which one of us you love the most."
No wonder, then, that Gomez carried insecurity, eagerness to please and thirst for showbiz success well into adulthood -- up to the present, it seems.
"Los Big Names" dizzily intercuts between childhood flashbacks (with
the star's delicious parental impersonations) and Marga's brief, abortive Hollywood
sojourn during the late-'90s "Latino explosion," one more trend that
fizzled out after a season's magazine covers. She got a heavyweight agent,
went the audition rounds and snagged one plum: a supporting role in big-budget
sci-fi thriller "Sphere," starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone,
Samuel L. Jackson and Queen Latifah.
The on-set travails of "Sphere," which became a notorious bomb, coincided
with Margarita's illness and death. At the end, Gomez was left with a huge
minus on her resume, no further offers, bleary memories of body-surfing the
L.A. lesbian scene and a nervous breakdown triggered by the final abandonment
of parents she'd never fully possessed to begin with.
Well-intentioned but hopelessly irresponsible, Marga's procreators are "the
reason I've been in theater for 20 years and my therapist is rich." Numerous
times here, she seems on the verge of admitting outright that they screwed
her up for life. But this never quite happens, the sentiment remaining a disturbing
if unarticulated undercurrent in a show whose merriment bears an intriguingly
neurotic edge.
With the help of a fairly elaborate sound design and scrim projections,
Gomez and director David Schweizer manage some precarious leaps, as when her
imagination strays from actual events to delusional fantasies that often involve
celebrities. Among those she portrays to perfection are Kathleen Turner (presiding
over an audition Marga failed) and Latifah (whose death-by-jellyfish in "Sphere" is
hysterically re-enacted).
But Gomez is no less sharp or amusing sketching the bodega loafers who wolf-whistled
her ma, or the nosy neighbor who demanded every gossipy detail of her parents'
lives.
Set, lighting, Alexander Nichols; sound, Mark O'Brien; production stage manager, Heather Deutsch; vocal recordings, Gordon Bowman-Jones. Opened July 13, 2005. Reviewed July 23. Running time: 1 HOUR, 25 MIN.
(Magic Theater Southside, July 2006 San Francisco; 160 seats; $38 top)
Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/story.asp?l=story&r=VE1117927807&c=33
