As Much As You Can
As Much As You Can is a play by Paul Oakley Stovall( who also plays the lead Jesse) about acceptance and a family trying “ the best that they can “ to live with the complicated realities of their lives. Unfortunately, the playwright bites off more than he can chew and attempts to cover to many subjects: coming out, racial prejudice. Black on black prejudice, religious intolerance, gay marriage, interracial relationships and infidelity. The result is melodrama instead of drama because we, the audience, never really fix on what character to follow. The funniest lines are given to a secondary character (the hysterical J. Nicole Brooks) the pushy lesbian friend of the family. The most interesting characters are also secondary. There is the half white, half black sister in the family who is well played by Yassmin Alers, Her is cool is matched by the Swedish boyfriend (Wes Ramsey) of the lead character Jesse (Paul Oakley Stovall. Jesse tends to be to wishy- washy and nervous to ever fully engage
our sympathies. The other brother, also of a mixed race, is nicely played by the handsome Andrew Kelsey. He is to be married, the reason why the family has gathered, but we never meet the bride.
One of the reasons to see the show is the appearance by Tonya Pinkins as the uptight religious sister Evy. She has been nominated for three Tony Awards and won in 1992 for Jelly’s Last Jam. For the last seventeen years she has portrayed “Livia Frye” on ABC’s All My Children. Evy is a difficult role because she is so intolerant but Pinkins managesto elicit our sympathy despite her quoting Leviticus. She has a conversion to compassion and love in the final scene but it really hasn’t been earned by the playwright.
As usual the Celebration Theatre, the oldest gay and lesbian theatre in Los Angeles has put on a good show though a flawed one. The acting is very good and there is much to mull over. I was sad to hear that the rent for the theatre had skyrocketed like a lot of other theatres in LA. But they are hanging on. They could use a donation.
At The Celebration Theatre http://www.celebrationtheatre.tix.com/