Casa Valentina

Casa Valentina, by The Lesser Known Players opened tonight at the Erickson Theater Off Broadway. It has lots of words. It’s a play, after all. And they are extremely clever words. Playwright Harvey Fierstein even not-so-obliquely compares himself to Oscar Wilde. But some of the simplest statements are the most effective. Near the top of the show, one of the characters says, “I don’t think I belong here.” And it hits. The line is said by a character arriving at a resort in the Catskills – it’s 1962 – where men who dress as women can be themselves. It’s exactly where he should be, you think. And yet … That’s the theme, a question really: can you draw a circle large enough, or small enough that you fit into it. Near the end, the wife of one of the characters asks him a question. I won’t say what it was. He answers with (again) a very simple line. “Yes,” he says. And the word and everything it implies just hangs there and expands out into the space, washing over the characters and out onto you.
Pictured: the lanyard I got with my VIP ticket (got me into the first row, which I love.)
Originally published on my Facebook page on October 19, 2018. 
Edit: The picture got removed, somehow. 

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