By Eileen Miller
This article was originally published in DC Theater Arts here.
In the opening moments of Fake It Until You Make It, a simple jacket quietly hints at what’s to come. The jacket in question is printed with geometric patterns distinctive of Navajo weaving. The person wearing it is — visibly — white. That said, criticism should not be so swift to rain down upon her: there is a line between cultural appreciation and appropriation. She is also, as is soon revealed, the founder of the nonprofit Indigenous Nations Soaring (INS) and has a genuine interest in supporting Indigenous communities. Still, the initial discomfort in seeing a white woman casually wear Indigenous designs serves to subtly signal what’s ahead: a cleverly crafted comedy about identity and ambition that both humanizes and ridicules every perspective.
Directed by Michael John Garcés, Larissa FastHorse’s satirical farce is making its DC debut at Arena Stage after a run in Los Angeles at Center Theatre Group earlier this year. In Fake It Until You Make It, tensions immediately flare between River (Amy Brenneman), the aforementioned founder of INS, and Wynona (Shyla Lefner), founder of N.O.B.U.S.H., who is passionate about butterfly protection and firm in her Indigenous identity.
Disputes over cat custody and plant placement are quickly overshadowed by the primary conflict between the two women: competition over grant funding for their nonprofits. After a serendipitous case of mistaken identity lands Wynona’s boyfriend Theo (Noah Bean) a job with INS, she plots to use him to sabotage River’s grant application. If the plot sounds fairly straightforward, prepare for some curveballs: FastHorse’s masterfully crafted script introduces surprise after surprise, weaving the story into a compelling and hilarious satire of identity and ambition.
The cast of six is excellent. Bean’s Theo is the closest the play has to a comedic foil, both through his attempts to be the voice of reason and his humorous reactions to the other characters’ absurd schemes. He plays Theo with a lovable affability, providing a good-natured and — relatively — calming presence on stage.
Lefner brings an earnestness to Wynona’s self-righteousness. She shows how a lot of passion can be dedicated to a cause as small as butterflies through both her delighted scheming to bring down her rival and her exasperated reactions to calls from people expecting N.O.B.U.S.H. to provide a different kind of service.
Brenneman unfolds River’s complexity well, steering her portrayal away from white savior stereotypes. She excels at comic timing on lines that are unintentionally humorous and infuses River with an earnestness for her cause that mirrors Wynona’s — even if neither woman notices the shared passion they have for their nonprofits.
The rest of the cast is strong, too. Brandon Delsid as Krys shines when his character eagerly joins in the mistaken-identity hijinks, and his performance proves that there can never be too many laughs. Burgandi Trejo Phoenix as Grace is another performance that improves the longer her character is onstage. While it initially seems that her character may be among the saner of the co-working space residents, the reveal of what kind of organization she leads adds a hilarious twist that layers in more identity-related humor to the show. Mark (Eric Stanton Betts) may join the chaos late in the show as one of FastHorse’s curveballs complicating the characters’ schemes, but his time on stage is well used. With a grounded sincerity, Betts evens out the absurdity of the rest of the cast.
The humor in the script is further enhanced by the production’s physical humor. In a play rife with sabotage and cases of mistaken identity, characters frequently flee from each other in mad dashes and near misses. Another hilarious work of choreography was the scuffles that ramp up as the stakes of the schemes increase. These moments use the wild reactions and exaggerated movements of the characters to draw constant laughter from the audience and highlight the absurdity of the characters’ schemes.
This physicality was elevated by Fake It Until You Make It’s set. The stage, representing the colorful co-working space in which Wynona and River’s feud plays out, comes in two parts: a ground-floor common area and the second-floor offices of River and Krys. On the ground level, a wide open floor leaves plenty of room for the characters to run around. One wall prominently features a mural by Indigenous artist River Garza, showcasing the production’s dedication to promoting the work of Indigenous artists.
Through a pair of intricately-furnished glass-windowed offices that are pushed onstage from either side of the stage, the characters travel to the second floor of the co-working space. Large glass windows and glass doors allow the audience to see all that occurs inside, and a connecting door — strategically introduced early in the play — is frequently used to emphasize the farce. This set piece is employed masterfully throughout the show, with each instance of chase or evasion adding in new elements that keeps the choreography feeling fresh.
FastHorse set out to write a farce, and she certainly succeeded. Just when you think that one mistaken identity plotline has run its course, she introduces another to complicate things further. The play’s exaggerated physical humor — a key element of farce — was entertaining without veering into excess. FastHorse’s social commentary was also humorously executed. Pushing the mistaken-identity trope beyond mistaken names to cases of misidentified race, FastHorse elevated the themes of identity and cultural authenticity explored in the play while never exhausting the audience’s laughter.
No Comments