Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle<\/p>\n
The Award Winning San Francisco Playhouse is presently performing the riotous ABIGAIL\u2019S PARTY by Mike Leigh as directed by Amy Glazer.<\/p>\n
Susi Damilano, rightfully the first lady of San Francisco stage comedy, marvelously plays Beverly: a diabolical, deranged hostess reminiscent of the Stanford Prison Experiment, Mommie Dearest and Lindsay English.<\/p>\n
Half hostess, half Nurse Ratchet, all evil; Beverly is the accidental devil herself; plying her guests, or captives, with alcohol as if it were mineral water, Beverly turns a perfectly wretched, boring party into a disaster and psycho-drama.<\/p>\n
Even the audience is held captive because the play is gut-wrenchingly hilarious; insanely funny; but, you might catch yourself asking, \u201cShould I be laughing at this?\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither a professional elevator operator, an evil spouse, nor a trained psychologist could ever push buttons as effectively as Beverly; tormenting her guests with gouging remarks which run the spectrum from careless, to tasteless, to tactless to ruthless.<\/p>\n
Beverly shepherds her ovine victims into Dante\u2019s stygian depths of tormented revelers.<\/p>\n
Even a liter of gin won\u2019t dull the mental anguish inflicted by Madame Beverly.<\/p>\n
Ms. Damilano is the closest San Francisco is going to get to having its own Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett or Lily Tomlin; her comedy is nuanced to the rafters, her timing is to the nanosecond and her movements as salacious as they are comic.<\/p>\n
Despite a supporting cast of four characters; this is nearly a one woman show; like a dominatrix, Beverly takes charge, rough riding her guests right into the fetid carpet stains.<\/p>\n
A great set design by Bill English captures the very essence of chintzy kitsch, glitzy pretense and cheesy misguided intentions: superbly done; it induces a visual queasiness even before the house lights flicker.<\/p>\n
If you are looking for a fun evening in San Francisco, then ABIGAIL\u2019S PARTY is your ticket; this is art wrapped in bacon, wrapped in Velveeta, topped with Whip and Chill.<\/p>\n
To reserve your night of laughter, surf over to SFPLAYHOUSE.ORG or call 415-677-9596.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle The Award Winning San Francisco Playhouse is presently performing the riotous ABIGAIL\u2019S PARTY by Mike Leigh…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"