Parallel Lives just closed on the Baltimore Theatre Project stage on Preston St.
The show was a collage of comedy sketches based on The Kathy and Mo Show, which had its debut on that very same stage some decades ago, and made Kathy Najimy famous (she was one of the sisters in Hocus Pocus, opposite Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker, and is rumored to have landed a role in the upcoming Ice Age movie).
The show was put on by the Iron Crow Theatre company, which is already scheduled to perform at least once more on the Theatre Project stage this season.
Parallel Lives certainly won't blast either of its actresses (Michele Minnick and Katie Ellen Simmons-Barth) into international stardom, but the production did have a quirky charm that never completely devolved into preciousness.
The company, voted Best New Face on the Theatre Scene this year by City Paper, has a positive mission statement. They embrace outside perspectives as a rule, particularly LGBT-oriented theatre.
So to choose Parallel Lives was, on surface, appropriate; and the actresses were often connected; it was a surprisingly personal show, considering how many characters each had to play in the hour-and-a-half performance.
The show's message of acceptance and borderless love were carried through until the end, but where it often had heart the production lacked guts.
Simmons-Barth, who took on the more challenging roles by far, seemed self-conscious and self-doubting at many times, and she didn't claim her space at crucial times when the whole stage could have been hers. Minnick's characters, on the other hand, were consistent but safe.
For both actresses, when the final scene came and all the characters were brought on at once – requiring the actresses to jump in and out of personas in a heartbeat – the voices heard individually were shown to be blended and muddled.
Parallel Lives promised its audience a modern show that would resonate on a present-day pitch. The characters on stage were,each and every one of them, characters from 1986 (and the costumes really weren't helping if that's not what they were going for).
The themes of Kathy and Mo's Parallel Lives probed issues like gay rights, religion, and family dysfunction – and in 1986 the show was shocking, ballsy, and controversial – but in today's reality these issues have already been probed, and they've changed.
What the show needed was either: a) living characters from this generation, or b) a blown-up reboot of Kathy and Mo's original characters.
Distortion, when things grow stale, can be an amazingly effective tool, especially in comedy. The characters were, at every turn, crying to become cartoons of themselves.
Thus, sadly, the production was safe. But the show's director, Paul Wissman, succeeded in other aspects. His vision was clear and his message received. This is his directing debut, and he achieved in staging perhaps the most difficult and most effective kind of vision there is to stage. A simple vision.
The set-pieces remained on stage the entire time, transitions weren't busy and stayed short, and there were no wrenches thrown into the production. Simple, as many know, is not easy.
Helping. Wissman was designer Stephanie Waaser, whose minimal set was bare bones in a visibly rewarding way.
While there were indeed so many chances for these artists to turn up the volume, there's much to be said for the dynamite moments when these actresses found truth in their roles.
The most memorable moment of the show was Minnick's, when as a frumpy aunt she related the time she was tested – her nephew had confessed to being a homosexual and after some struggle she chose to support him unabashedly – and the actress revealed a powerful, unexpected inner life to her stock character.
Actors like Minnick who can find moments of such emotional connection in unlikely places are an increasingly shrinking breed.
To sum up, if you were able to see Parallel Lives during its run, you'll have seen a comedy with a warming message, and heart; totally irrelevant but still cute; and with occasional pearls from actresses Simmons-Barth and Minnick.
Iron Crow's next production is I Want To Be a Gay Icon! More information can be found on their website: www.ironcrowtheatre.com.
