First Date
Runs through April 19 at Straz Center, 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa; $40; strazcenter.org, review rating: four out of five stars.
There must be a thousand plays, movies, and TV shows each year that look at dating in general and blind dates in particular. But First Date, the clever and charming musical now playing at the Straz Center, actually manages to find some original perspectives on the subject and generate some well-deserved belly laughs. It accomplishes these admirable and unlikely feats with a combination of psychological acuity, postmodern theatricality, and old-fashioned respect for the institution of couplehood, all while reminding us that in the dating game, there’s as much jungle between the ears as there is out in the landscape.
So yes, this is a fine choice for a Valentine’s Day outing, both for prospective and retrospective lovers. At the very least it can serve as an ice-breaker; at most, it may have therapeutic value. After all, the spectacle of honesty sometimes leads to the real thing.
The heroes of First Date are Aaron, a nerdish, clumsy, Jewish investment banker, and Casey, a sharp-thinking, slightly abrasive, New Agey would-be photographer. The 90 minutes of the musical are devoted to their first meeting at a restaurant, but there’s a lot more going on here than two young adults getting to know each other. Playing more than a dozen figures of Aaron and Casey’s imagination are a five-member company that acts, sings and dances its way along our funnybone while cajoling, encouraging or shaming Aaron and Casey.
For example, there’s a Jewish Chorus singing “Oy Vey” when Casey outs herself as a Gentile, and there’s a rapper as their potential son, complaining about his confusion (“Do I believe the Messiah’s coming?/Or came and went?”). There are a couple of scruffy rockers reminding Casey she prefers bad boys (“I will pledge eternal love/Then leave your place right after sex”), and there’s Alison, Aaron’s ex-fiancee, trying to entice him to carry a torch for her.
There are others, too, a few of whom are actual humans, and all of whom represent the forces pushing and pulling on the protagonists as they try to navigate their first encounter. Everybody sings sooner or later — the words are at times hilarious, the melodies instantly forgettable — and there are a couple of recurrent figures like Casey’s gay friend Reggie, whose job is to bail her out of the date if it looks too unpromising.
The acting is first-rate. Michael Mahany is Aaron, and he’s the epitome of awkward, needy insecurity. But he’s not locked into this attitude: with Casey’s help (and a technique right out of Gestalt therapy) he eventually finds his inner Rhett Butler and confronts the reality of his too-often-fantasized ex. Valerie Witherspoon is Casey, and she’s a delightfully complex post-feminist female, taking charge of the date within minutes, and then having to act carefully lest she scuttle her own chances.
Mahany and Witherspoon have strong if not remarkable singing voices, and they work seamlessly with the Chorus of Figments played by Michael Coale Grey, Gabrielle Mirabella, Robert Rice, Alice Rix and Jonathan Van Dyke.
A lot of the credit for First Date’s success belongs to writer Austin Winsberg. The lyrics, if not the music, of Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner are often outstanding, and director Lee Wilkins is responsible for some very funny staging.
Should you take a first date to First Date? Yes, if you dare. The real question is how honest you want to get — and how soon.
You do intend to be honest, don’t you?
This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2015.