The Bourgie Willie B. August 6 & 8, 8 p.m.; August 9, 2 p.m.; $20-$25. Art Square Theatre, 1025 First St., 702-818-3422.
The Bourgie Willie B., a world-premiere comedy by SJ Hodges, is an amusing, sometimes tiring story that never quite escapes its history. A modern adaptation of Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, the show follows William B. (played by Erik Amblad), a conservative, middle-aged and very, very white stockbroker intent on becoming the hippest hip-hop record producer so he can successfully seduce Nikki D. (Ashley Rapuano). The talent search places his daughter Lucy’s (April Needham) plans of opera school in danger, so his wife (Teresa Fullerton) and maid Margarita (Natalie Senecal) set out to stop his largesse, much to the consternation of all the artists taking advantage of his open wallet.
If that seems like a lot, don’t worry—it’s all spelled out a little too clearly throughout the show, produced by Asylum Theatre at Art Square Theatre. Moliere was heavily influenced by Commedia dell’Arte, and the stock characters and plots from that tradition are still with us today, most notably in sitcoms and reality TV. The formula can work when the characters are fresh enough, the jokes sharp enough and the action fast enough. But while director Sarah O’Connell frames some funny moments—a photographer working Willie B. through modeling poses while explaining why he never actually takes pictures so the art can be more transitory; Willie B. rapidly switching between fawning lust and a play-it-cool attitude with Nikki D.—more often than not, the bits fell flat. Too many sequences had the sitcom air of forced jocularity waiting for a laugh track, or just didn’t blossom. When Senecal’s maid dresses in drag as Willie B. to fool an admissions counselor, the gag doesn’t go nearly far enough to warrant the laughs it thinks it deserves. It felt like a great setup to a joke that never came.
Nevertheless, there are some genuinely funny bits, usually involving Amblad or Senecal. Amblad, seemingly made of rubber, shifts between cowardice, appetite, panic and lust in a heartbeat. His vainglorious attempts to fit in with the youthful artistic crowd lead to all manner of humorous posturing, up to and including twerking to show his daughter what it takes to succeed as an artist today. Senecal plays the sassy ethnic domestic help for all it’s worth, and while the trope may be tired, she gets some of the play’s best lines and goes all out for her character’s multiple transformations.
But the show isn’t transformative enough to discard the dated feel that surrounds it. It can be slick and funny, but never truly takes off.
