“Are they trying to kill someone?” Carlo asks while studying a spread of hors d’oeuvres. It’s not the first line that’ll make you laugh when watching At the Wedding, but it’s one of many that gives an insider’s wink to its target audience.
I know it might be hard to believe considering the current uptick of lesbians on film (we’re really having a moment), but queer women are rarely the focal point in pop culture. That’s largely why Bryna Turner wrote this 75-minute play now in production at Studio Theatre that makes a comedy of lesbian drama when Carlo (Dina Thomas) more or less crashes her ex-girlfriend’s wedding to a cishet man. (Is it really crashing if you were invited, but didn’t RSVP?)
The attempted homicide that Carlo fears stems from the buffet table’s unlabeled food platters. There is nary an allergy warning to be detected. And for anyone who’s ever attended a queer Thanksgiving meal, it’s a guffaw-inducing line. (At one such recent meal I attended, 20 of us introduced our potluck contributions, making note of problem-causing ingredients such as meat, dairy, gluten, nuts, and onions.) Once again, forcing us all to wonder: Do straight people not have dietary restrictions? It’s also one reason to see Turner’s play: It’s refreshing to see messy queer lives, long past the coming-out chapter of our stories, written by queer writers, on stage.
The laugh-inducing play itself follows Carlo throughout a terribly dull reception—despite the dancing, lip-synching waiter (Jonathan Atkinson)—an excruciating wedding soundtrack, an angry bridesmaid, a drunk mother of the bride (played by a delightfully triggering Holly Twyford), a possible new love interest, and tons of jokes about Northern California. I knew going in that Turner and I were from the same section of the Golden State, but it wasn’t until Carlo suggests making a break for a bar named the Golden West that I realized we share the same hometown. (Although Turner and I went to rival high schools and graduated six years apart.) So to say this play resonated with me is a bit of an understatement.
These shared identity markers have also made it hard to decipher how I feel about the story, which I originally described to my viewing companions as “not groundbreaking.” At the Wedding is a rom-com where the protagonist doesn’t get the girl, but maybe, and more importantly, learns how to move on and begin taking care of herself. Surely an important lesson, but one we’ve learned before. If all the characters were straight, I’d venture to say it would be almost forgettable.
But forgettable does not mean unenjoyable. Thomas’ comedic timing is exceptional, and her deadpan humor—“Hell is other people,” she mutters at one point—invests you in her character even if Carlo is, at times, a grating drunk on her high horse. Luciana Stecconi’s set is simple: wood planks and a backdrop of complex barn doors that open at all angles, revealing a wall of large bright roses, give it a Pinterest-level sense of rustic chic; the flower arch spanning the full length of the stage creates the sense that the audience is at the wedding, too.
Turner’s firsthand understanding of queer humor and experience make the play more memorable. (Likewise, I’d argue Love Lies Bleeding would be a B-rate flash in the pan if not for its queerness, which will inevitably raise the Kristen Stewart vehicle to cult classic alongside the likes of But I’m a Cheerleader and Bound.)
At the Wedding doesn’t rise to that cult kitsch. It’s both too sentimental and PG to gain that kind of notoriety—despite Carlo wondering if “the burning bush” isn’t actually a reference to lesbians bursting into flames upon entering a church. But it does give us a new spin on a classic story setting, and it reminds us why it’s so thrilling to see works created by new voices outside our canon storytellers (i.e., White, cisgender men). I was lucky enough to see At the Wedding with two of my friends, also queer women, and by the end we had all laughed out loud, and one of us got teary-eyed. Before we left the theater, we dissected everything from the characters’ costumes to casting. We were invested in a way I can’t remember being about many other comedies.
So perhaps Turner’s At the Wedding isn’t groundbreaking, but at least it’s given me plenty to chew on.
At the Wedding, by Bryna Turner and directed by Tom Story, has been extended and runs through April 28 at Studio Theatre. studiotheatre.org. $35–$99.
