Beautiful Man

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69 Moments of Life
Actor, You're Killing Me
Air Tight Security
Almost True Adventures ...
Amazing Improvised Musical
Animal Farm
Ballerina on a Horse
Beautiful Man
Berserker
Caffe di Amore or ...
Check the Box
Clearing Hedges
Corned Beef
Countless
Crime & Variations
Death Blow II: ...
Demon Pope
Diagnosis: Jew Pain ...
Disco Prophecies
Ethan's Gift
Far From Springer
Fixed Boundry
Forty Love
Got Water
I Can't Believe They're Not Oriental!
Idiot Machine: ...
In Cahoots
John Muir: Watch, Pray, Fight
Late Night Talk Show
Ludlow and Canal
Magic at the Fringe
Man 1, Bank 0
Marx in Soho
Mixed Signal
Mother: A Modern Buddhist ...
Naked Inqisition
nEO - surrealists present: ...
Neon's Crazy Blue
Nharcolepsy
Original Action Pack
Park - N - Ride
Passages
Sandwich
Scabaret!
Searching for God in Kerala
Seventh Game of the World Series
Shadow Kissers
Strobe Vision
This World is Not My Home
Total Improvisation - ...
Train Stories
Tripping on the Equator ...
Twinspeak

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: B. Johnson
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 4 Stars
Loved the cast. Loved the play. Lots of fun. But had trouble finding the venue: "Excuse me. Can you tell me where to see a beautiful man?"

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Sara Meeker
Reviewer Email:
Rating: None
This was a very entertaining and enjoyable show. The main character was endearing and someone we could all relate to, gay or straight, because we've all been in love with someone we know is perfect for us but we're not sure if we can have them. My favorite character was the roommate. I didn't get the sense that he was "acting" gay, he just was, and it was genuine and fun. His facial expressions especially cracked me up; they felt un-anticipated. Benji was way hot of course; cute in that Keanu Reeves sort of way. Thank god he flashed us his bare chest, wish it lasted longer. The wife character was my least favorite just because she was jarringly over the top. Actually, it was cute at first but there was no variation and it grated on my nerves just a bit. But she did have some funny facial expressions. Maybe I'm just jealous because I wanted to be Benji's wife. They all talked too fast and tripped over their words sometimes, but I forgive them because they only had an hour and b!
ecause I was very entertained. I got a kick out of how the main character spontaneously interacted with a couple audience members (myself included) unscripted, and then easily got back on track. The audience was very enthusiastic and I left feeling good about the show.

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Jeff Thompson
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
A beautiful play. It is howling funny without ever ( well hardly ever ) resorting to cheap jokes,and it is touching without ever becoming sentimental. The cast is remarkable.PA Cooley can get more and bigger laughs with one twitch of his eyebrow than most actors can get in an entire evening. David Bicha matches him laugh for laugh. Matthew Vierling, in perhaps the play's most difficult role, plays a man "too good to be true" as a man both good and true. Sarah Mitchell is hilarious but alone among the four she seems more caricature than character.
What a great,fun experience! I hear the show is selling out so get there early.

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Mark Markdon of the Bay Area Reporter
Reviewer Email:
Rating: None
Oh, the pain! The pain! It's so awfully heartwrenchingly agonizingly ridiculous -- and wildly hilarious -- to be "secretly" hung up on a sexy co-worker! Especially if you're a nebbish queer PR flack, overworked and understaffed at your agency, confronted with Adonis in the form of a new trainee -- who might or might not be queer! Oh how painfully Andy J. (David Bicha) huffs and puffs and squeals in love-sick agony as he gleefully/disastrously wallows in his puppy dog, hot-flash obsession with new hire Benji (Matthew Vierling), and how innocently/slyly the toothsome Benji laps up the adoration, sweet-talking his boss, professing a friendship that in Andy J.'s mind just keeps getting closer, and closer...and, well how close will it grow?

That's the basic premise of playwright Joe Jennison's queer comedy A Beautiful Man, which opened last Friday at the Jon Sims Center for the Arts, where it's playing through September 14 as part of the 12th annual San Francisco Fringe Festival, organized by the EXIT Theater. The play has been developed as part of the JSC/Alchemy Emerging Playwrights program at the Sims Center, and fittingly it was introduced by JSC/Alchemy Artistic Director Alan Quismorio, who seemed pleased as punch with the product, and deservedly so.

Given the play's basic sitcom situation, it could have quickly devolved into forgettable mush, the kind of negligible fare you skip over with the remote; fortunately director Jeffrey Hartgraves takes Jennsion's script and runs with it, keeping the humor engaging and the action at fever pitch, helped by an extraordinary cast of performers, including Sarah Mitchell as Benji's fiancée, who blathers on with fabulous disconnect from reality, oohnig and aahing over how lovely it is her man and Andy J. are such good friends, eagerly making wedding arrangements even as Andy J. if fantasizing about stealing her man away, and resenting her getting between him and his dream come true.

Then there's the wonderful P.A. Cooley, who plays Alex, the co-worker/roommate who openly lusts after Andy J., who just can't be bothered with his attentions, which leaves Alex a bit bitchy, to say the least!

Regular San Francisco theatre-goers may have seen these actors in other standout productions. Most recently Bicha was seen in Lavender Lockeroom, while Vierling was in PINS, Mitchell played in Libidoff, and Cooley's name has become synonymous with "The PA Cooley Show." Playwright Jennison hails from Iowa, has produced seven plays, and serves as Arts & Entertainment Editor for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Director Hartgraves relocated to the Bay Area in 1995 from Arizona, and will be directing Worse Than Chocolate for the main stage at Theatre Rhinoceros in October.

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Michael Potter
Reviewer Email: MAP051970@yahoo.com
Rating: 4 Stars
Fast and fun! P.A. Cooley and Sara Mitchell shine! It was standing room only last Saturday night, so arrive early or be forced to go home and rent "Gigli" again.

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Rose Sullivan
Reviewer Email: rsullivan@gmwest.com
Rating: 5 Stars
PA Cooley was brilliant! All the actors were fabulous as well; the play was engaging and funny as hell!!

I'm looking forward to the next versions...

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Donna
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
What fun! Great pacing and timing from all the actors. PA Cooley is fabulous as the foil for David Bicha's character. He shifts on a dime and sachets like a belle!Sarah Mitchell had me in stitches everytime she was on stage. Great show!

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Vince Vitale
Reviewer Email: WorldGazer@aol.com
Rating: 5 Stars
Joe Jennison’s play about a fellow’s crush on a new co-worker also new to San Francisco from Kansas, is a sweet look at love and reserve in the office atmosphere. Mostly soliloquy, Jennison plays out various situations in fantasy format along side the reality, always making the audience feel like part of the cerebral action. Thoroughly queer humor, but it’s not an in-joke, and any heterosexual could appreciate this. The straight guy is a role model of the affectionate, non-macho stud. “A Beautiful Man” is excellent gay theater, well performed.

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: StFo
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
This show is cuter than a bucket full of
plushy moosies (for comparitive analysis,
check out the bucket full of plushy moosies
at Harry & David in Union Square). You'll
want to run up and give the whole cast a
warm & fuzzy hug afterwards. (No cheek-
pinching, please - they've got a few more
shows to perform and cheek bruises are so
hard to cover over with makeup). -StFo

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Yaz
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 4 Stars
Great fun. The writing is witty, and the acting was very spirited. I have but one word for this play: "Ole!!!"

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Rich
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
A perfect hour. Great writing, great acting, strong direction. All four actors were faaaaabulous -- not a weak link. The only possible criticism is that it's so polished that it's hard to call it fringe. Bravo to all involved.

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Charles Belov
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
I was laughing at this play from beginning to end. As someone who has a lively fantasy life, I really enjoyed seeing acted out the differences between one's fantasy and the reality; I could really identify with this, as well as with the ideas of unrequited and semi-requited lust. Go. See. It. Now.

The 5 star rating is for A Beautiful Man. On the night I attended, they followed it (after an intermission) with readings of two other plays that supposedly gave a context for this play. I realize making something seem funny at a reading is more challenging than acting it out. Still, I didn't find either follow-on play particularly funny, nor did it add to the already-sufficient richness of A Beautiful Man. So if you go, and have the opportunity to stay for the reading, I wouldn't bother. You will have already gotten more than your money's worth from A Beautiful Man.

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Zelly Kinoshta
Reviewer Email: pipinghot_greentea@yahoo.com
Rating: 5 Stars
This play is such a breath of fresh air. It's colorful and fun. Everything about it is! I luckily got into the second Saturday showing (people were turned away and it was standing room only)... It is a panacea for a lot of self-serious stuff at the Fringe (although I have to say this year's batch is a vast improvement from last year). Only a dyed-in-the-wool cynic can leave this show grumbling.

Play: a beautiful man
Reviewer: mary
Reviewer Email: ssauga24@hotmail
Rating: 2 Stars
if you like sitcoms you may enjoy this show. otherwise, go see something else. good queenie performances though!

Play: Beautiful Man
Reviewer: David Welch
Reviewer Email: welchds@earthlink.net
Rating: 4 Stars
As a middle aged straight tourist from a rural community, I went to my first fringe play with just a bit of trepidation. This play was wonderful! Its humor far transcended any lines of gender or orientation. While there was plenty of gay-themed humor - and a few jokes I think only members of an urban gay culture would get - this was really just a light but warm and kind look at the search for love we all know. Great performers, good direction and wonderful writing.

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Ivyn Allen
Reviewer Email: septequinox@yahoo.com
Rating: 5 Stars
Entertaining! I had such a good time with this show. A slow start, but it gets moving soon enough--in five minutes... It's a PERFECT cast: David Bicha is a joy in the lead: watching him go from smitten to obsessed is a hoot! PA Cooley brings a lot of presence and bubble and heart to his best-friend-in-love-with-the-protoganist role. Sarah Mitchell is a SCREAM!!! And Matthew Vierling is not only one HOT property, but a surprisingly talented actor. I recommend this to everyone!

Play: A Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Michael Polka
Reviewer Email: michael_polka@yahoo.com

Stopped into "A Beautiful Man" Friday night while in town to see a friend. Am so glad I did. This is actually the second time I've seen this play. I laughed thoughout the play (every five minutes or so) both this time, and when they did a read-through about a year ago.

This is a funny and true type of play that made the whole audience laugh. I think this play is so true to the gay man's heart, who occasionally runs into a great-looking guy with a fantastic personality, and then starts to wonder if this perfect man is straight or gay (but just doesn't have the balls to ask).

Everyone did a fabulous job, but the highlight of the evening was Benji, the perfect gay guy's dream (this staight guy must be gay or should be gay): His smile, the way he danced when he took off his shirt -- he dances better than a gay guy. There was one split second where Benji did something with his lips (I don't know exactly what he did but we all just knew it was better than something you would see in a good homo-erotic independent film, or a good Tom Cruise-in-his-underwear mainstream film). Yum.

I can't think of anyone better for the part. I think Mattew Vierling IS Benji. He is the type of straight guy that we all fantacize and hope is gay.

When Sara Mitchell first came out on stage, I thought the part was played a little over the top, but my first response was totally different than the rest of the audiance. Her first two-minute scene got a round of applause from the audience. She came out again for a short scene again and the audience applauded again. These were not soft claps but enthusiastic claps of laughter! The clapping I think happened a total of three times when she came out on the stage. I guess the audience knows better than me.

These actors are here to entertain and that they did, and they had a great story to work with by playwright Joe Jennison. I think this play would be great as a movie. When the audience laughs thoughout a play (which I think is very difficult to achieve), you know you're experiencing something special.

I can't tell you how many plays I have sat through and wanted to laugh and be entertained so badly but could not laugh. One knows that a film version would definitley capture the humor if it can be captured on stage. Good job.

Here is the tough critic in me. I did not understand all of the costume changes for Alex's character. It was a little distracting. No one else had costume changes and that is the way it should be. I would have preferred real props instead of paper cut-outs and the Twister-game shower curtains, yuck, but hey, it all can't be beautiful. The lighting change that suggested the "fourth wall" was not neccessary, just an abrupt body shift toward the audience from Andy J would have sufficed for me.

I also have to comment on the sold-out audience. A group of fine looking men of all ages that are sure to please anyone's particular flavor of the month. Good husband materal there guys! And keeping with the theme of the play...I had a few fantacies with the audience.

Play: Beautiful Man
Reviewer: Eric
Reviewer Email: wannagan@yahoo.com
Rating: 5 Stars
Simply hilarious. The script was intelligent, fun, and very San Francisco. The only disappointment was seeing Benji kiss his girlfriend during intermission(i guess he really isnt gay...=( )

The 4 actors in this play obviously have spent lots of time making this production work and it does. AJ was particuarly good.

Great job.

Play: A BEAUTIFUL MAN
Reviewer: Bob Bruman
Reviewer Email: bob@bobbruman.com
Rating: 5 Stars
Somewhere inside each of us is a bizarre character that tends to over react and be too emotional, too much in love, for some of us it is just underneath the surface, A BEAUTIFUL MAN captures that character and presents it in a delightfully surreal fashion. I enjoyed and related to this crazy collage, I saw the dress rehearsal and I am on my way to see again, tonight, opening night. 9-5-2003 Bob Bruman