Review of PRIVATE JOKES, PUBLIC PLACES
PRIVATE LIVES, PUBLIC PLACES
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
To say that PRIVATE JOKES, PUBLIC PLACES by Oren Safdie is the funniest comedy to be seen anywhere in the Bay Area is an understatement.
To say is it is the best comedy of the year is more understatement.
As Bay Area critic with nearly twenty years invested in Bay Area theater houses, let me say this: PRIVATE JOKES, PUBLIC PLACES is the funniest, cleverest, most intelligent comedy I have seen since setting foot on the Pacific Rim.
I will bet both my IBM Selectric and my Smith Corona Galaxis Deluxe that this play will open on Broadway and will be targeted for botching by Hollywood.
Safdie is the first genius comic playwright to emerge in the current millennium.
Let us hope he is as prolific as Shaw.
If you were wondering who is going to inherit Tom Stoppard's seat in the Algonquin Room Safdie would be the best bet.
Safdie knows and writes subtlety, nuance, insinuation.
Try to imagine a play that is so funny—and funny is a poor choice of words: it is cliché—that you can dampen an entire bandana sized handkerchief with tears of laugher.
Then visualize a play that blurs your vision with tears of laughter as you mentally revisit it while driving home.
Then picture a play that has you laughing at the breakfast table the next morning.
Don't expect slap-stick, farce, sit-com, satire, parody, burlesque or glib repartee.
This is fresh comedy that is so well written it does not leave tracks when is gallops across the stage.
M.J. Kang is the pivotal jewel imbedded in the creative forehead of this stroke of genius.
Kang is endearing for any number of reasons.
The character—Margaret—that she and director Barbara Damashek have created is absolutely precious: a diligent, earnest, intelligence, articulate, idealistic architectural student with a well researched plan for a swimming pool complex.
Her malefactors are the nefarious professors Colin and Erhardt—superbly played by Charles Dean and Robert Parsons—both of who try for all the obvious Freudian reasons to rip her project to shreds.
Margaret holds her ground, retaining her aplomb, as she defends her thesis project from assaults by mediocrity, pompousness, arrogance and irrelevance.
If you see only one comedy in the next ten years, see this one.
If PRIVATE JOKES, PUBLIC PLACES does not make you weak from laughter, might I suggest a boxed DVD set of FRIENDS: The First Ten Banal Seasons.
For tickets, visit the web site at www.auroratheatre.org or call the Aurora Theatre of Berkeley at 510.843.4822.
U.S. Naval Aviator and Lieutenant Commander Retired
Math Teacher at Encinal High School A.U.S.D.
San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Sidewalk Politician and Arm Chair Liberal
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