BWW Reviews: Theatre22's WIZZER PIZZER Feels Poignant but Has No Point

Dreams are there for our brains to work things out when we can't and the more incapacitated we are the weirder those dreams become. I mean Dorothy dreamt about flying monkeys. Well in "Wizzer Pizzer: Getting Over the Rainbow", currently from Theatre22 as part of their Pride Series, the dream is just the latest in an attempt to tell someone else's message utilizing a trip to Oz. And while I loathe someone working out their therapy on stage, Amy Wheeler's play comes across as more what she felt would have been the resulting mindset from therapy without actually going through it and that's even worse as it's cliché joke after cliché joke ultimately amounting to no real resolution or message.

In the play Act One is all about Adrian (Eric Mulholland) after he has just bombed during his latest drag show. He's disillusioned and now listening to an anti-gay therapist on TV. So after a mysterious message that he's about to go on a journey and have a big change/discovery in his life, a few too many cocktails and a head injury, Adrian falls into the Act Two dream world of Dr. Marvel (Lisa Viertel) and her ex-gay poster couple Steve and Helen (Chip Wood and Alyssa Keene) where they claim they can fix Adrian.

Now the problem here is that we all know gay reparative therapy is a crock, so if you're going to comment on it then have something new or meaningful to say. But here, Wheeler just has scene after scene pointing out the same tired jokes of the therapists of such a group being the biggest closet cases of them all. Sure there are some funny moments but no real journey or message to be conveyed making the reason for this show the biggest mystery of all. Adrian doesn't really learn anything new or come to any big realizations except that he's gay which he and we knew at the beginning of the show. So where was this big change?

The cast does what they can with the lack of story but it all just amounts to the same joke over and over. Mulholland is likable enough as the protagonist of the piece but never had any place to grow in it making him feel a bit static. Wood and Keane have some funny moments as they are drawn back into their formerly gay ways especially with Matthew Sherrill as fellow a group member and Rhonda J. Soikowski as Adrian's best friend Frankie who has come to rescue him. Honestly it was Soikowski and her character that seemed the most interesting of the play and I would have preferred a play about her journey instead. In fact most of the audience seemed quite let down when they cut off her opening drag number. Pilar O'Connell turns in some wonderfully bratty moments as Steve and Helen's daughter Blaine. And Viertel's filmed Dr. Marvel segments bring in some of the funniest characterizations of the piece.

All told, the show amounts to nothing more than gay bit after gay bit. And while sometimes funny didn't really go anywhere. And so with my three letter rating system I give "Wizzer Pizzer" a slightly confused MEH as it just didn't do it for me. Although the audience around me seemed to be enjoying it much more than I but I guess I was just waiting for the meaning of the show which never came.

"Wizzer Pizzer: Getting Over the Rainbow" from Theatre22 performs at 12th Avenue Arts through August 1st. For tickets or information visit them online at www.theatre22.org.

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