“Never work with animals or children.”
W.C. Fields delivered those words of wisdom to adult actors, and if the great screen comic were alive today, he might add to that short list of taboos a young actor’s name: Michael Rishawn. He walks away with the new Douglas Lyons comedy “Table 17” even though he’s a supporting player. The play had its world premiere Friday at MCC Theater.
Rishawn’s achievement is even greater when you consider that he’s on stage a lot with Kara Young, a veteran scene-stealer who recently won a Tony for her spectacularly insane performance in “Purlie Victorious” on Broadway last season.
Young and Biko Eisen-Martin play extranged lovers in “Table 17” who are about to meet again for a date that’s really not a date. When we first meet them separately, Young’s Jada worries about wearing the right outfit. Eisen-Martin’s Dallas repeats how Holly Hunter applied body fragrance in “Broadcast News.” These two opening vignettes are fun in a “Same Time, Next Year” sort of way that hasn’t been seen on stage, especially an Off Broadway stage, in decades.
Then Rishawn shows up. He’s the lucky actor who not only gets to play three featured roles but make several costume changes; the stunning outfits are by Devario D. Simmons. Rishawn plays the gay maître-d at a restaurant where Jada and Dallas are about to appear. The word “pissy” doesn’t begin to describe his portrayal. He follows that later in “Table 17” by playing a stud of a bartender and then a flight attendant whose major attribute is that he’s not gay, and when he opens his shirt, his pecs are D cup plus. Only this flight attendant character really figures into the plot, which gives the full trajectory of Jada and Dallas’ messy love affair.
When Rishawn is off the stage, you wait for him to return. The more we see of Jada and Dallas, the less we want to. Their relationship features very stale problems having to do with infidelity and career ambitions. The more the flight attendant becomes part of that relationship’s demise, even the talented Rishawn can’t keep from getting bogged down in the suds of a rom-com that turns into pure soap opera.
Lyons also wrote “Chicken & Biscuits.” In my review of that 2022 Broadway comedy, I wrote: “Among the heart-felt confessions of disinheritance and eating disorders, there’s a chat about why calling a homosexual man ‘a white boy’ is an act of grace.”
Lyons has more interesting things to say about gays in “Table 17.” With his gay maître-d character, he equates homosexuality with inherent loneliness. My suggestion to this tragically single restaurant host is simple: when Rishawn plays gay, he should take a tip from the flight-attendant side of his brain and show off those cut abs and enormous chest as often as possible. He will be lonely no more.
Zhailon Levingston directs.
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