Parallel Lives: The Kathy and Mo Show is a not-very-interesting evening of pallid comic sketches that might have been culled from a random group of 10-year-old cable-television comedy specials. The skits are mostly feminist in intention, but authors Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy have almost nothing new or incisive to say about women (or men, for that matter) or about religion or relationships (their other main subjects). Further, the ordering of the sketches often seems arbitrary, and many of them are too long or, in a few cases, too fragmentary. As for the acting, by Kim Crow (who also directs) and Jill Jackson, it's occasionally excellent but usually just better than average. So the experience of the show is mostly one of waiting: We wait for the few intellectual insights and for those moments when the acting is as comedic as it wants to be. And we reflect that in an era in which no subject is taboo, it takes more than mere candor to keep an audience happy.The best sketches in the show can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There's the opening sequence, in which two angelic beings discuss what skin colors to parcel out to newly created humanity, and how to create parity between men and women. On skin color, there's general agreement that yellow, red, black and brown are attractive; but surely (they reason) white is too bland and will make white people feel inferior. Similarly, they suspect that men will envy women's capacity to bear children, so they add pain to parturition, and give males enormous egos ("And then just hope for the best").
Another insightful sketch features a character who's trying to live up to "Kenny Rogers'" view of the feminine ideal. Her reasoning is shrewd (and says a lot about men's needs): She'll be strong "in an attractive, weak sort of way," she'll look great "in a subtle, I have no idea I look great kind of way," and she'll do her part in lovemaking, "exuding just enough need but being careful to be distant enough for you to wonder about." Unfortunately, there's another character in this skit, a prostitute named Candida who never really justifies her existence on stage.
But anyway, getting back to the best sketches (or at least the best sections of sketches), there's one more, in which a woman tells of her discovery that her favorite nephew is gay: "And he says to me, I love Phillip. And I say, who doesn't love Phillip, the whole family loves Phillip, he's a wonderful cook and very polite. I love Phillip, too." What's poignant here is the grace with which "Aunt Maddie" accepts the unexpected: "So I said, it's gonna take me a little while to get used to the whole idea, but hell, I got used to the microwave oven." In this sequence, as in the previous two, the writing is fine, the subtext is mostly serious, and the acting is just right. A whole evening like this would be a hands-down success.
It's not all like this. Instead, most of Parallel Lives is clichéd, pointless or overlong. A sketch about two college students out on a date at a "Gay Denny's" never ignites and never tells us anything very important about either character. (Actress Jackson is ingratiating, though, as one of those nervous young women who laugh apologetically at just about anything). "Period Piece," about how men would act if they menstruated, is far too predictable, and "Three Sisters," about three young women at the funeral of their grandmother, fails to impress us with its tired cremation and vegetarian jokes or with its brief acknowledgement of bulimia. "Las Hermanas" is supposed to satirize feminism and performance art, but its approach to the former is hackneyed, and its view of the latter might have been funny 20 years ago on Saturday Night Live.
Then there's the most ambitious — and most disappointing — sequence of the evening, a visit to two Catholic girls at various stages of their religious development. We see them speculating about heaven and hell (in hell one burns, it seems, eternally), wondering whether pot-smoking is banned in the Bible (they decide that it is), wondering about Eve and the apple (maybe she'd surpassed her Weight Watchers portion), and proving, for all their protestations to the contrary, that there are no atheists in foxholes (frantic prayer after a near car accident). Finally, the sequence is just too long and has too little to say. Too long also are "Annette and Gina," a tedious discussion of West Side Story, and "Silent Torture," in which we're supposed to be fascinated by a woman's morning washing-up routine.
The best acted of all the segments is one of the last, "Hank and Karen Sue," about a divorced woman and the drunk who repeatedly proposes marriage to her. But no matter how credible are Jackson as the drunk and Crow as his love object, the skit repeats itself and repeats itself until we just want to move on — to a different sketch or a different play.
Well, at least the design elements of the show are successful. Trevor Keller's fine set places us in a backstage area with the costumes and wigs that the performers will use, and those costumes, by Crow, are nicely emblematic of the show's various personages. Crow's sound design is also winning: We hear snatches of popular songs and, during the "Silent Torture" mime, part of a Bizet symphony. Still, you know the play has problems when you find yourself more interested in the musical interludes than in the scenes. And Crow's directing isn't always helpful: There were several moments when I couldn't quite figure what was happening on stage, who was who, and where was where. This murkiness further detracts from an already problematic evening.
Still, there's only one fundamental cause of Parallel Lives' failure, and that's the dearth of real invention. Menstruation, sexual politics, Catholic girls' school, latter-day hippies: we've been there, we've heard that. From Lenny Bruce to John Leguizamo, we've had unending hours of the most explicit comedy on the most personal of subjects. So if you ain't got something really new to add, don't waste our time.
Which is finally what Parallel Lives does for most of its two acts.
And that's nothing to laugh about.
Contact Performance Critic Mark E. Leib at 813-248-8888 ext. 305, or mark.leib@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2004.