Emily Zickler, Jimmy Mavrikes, Farrell Parker, Tiziano D’Affuso, and Patricia “Pep” Targete (Daniel Schwartz)
Transferring the manic energy of a party to the stage is a profoundly difficult task for any creative team. Pull back the energy too much and it’s a dull affair; lean into it too hard and you risk ending up with something raw but impossible to follow.
Directed by Allison Arkell Stockman, Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party deftly balances these moving parts, producing a vision that lets the script’s surprising emotional heft shine through without sacrificing the hedonistic spectacle the title implies.
And hedonistic it is. The Wild Party takes place during the historical party zenith of the 1920s and demands an extravagance that Constellation Theatre Company answers with a constant assault on the senses. It does the decade’s most lavish gatherings proud.
This isn’t just eye candy, though. The play harbors a dark heart beneath the partygoer antics in the form of its leads and party hosts, Queenie (Farrell Parker) the spellbinding vaudeville star and her abusive comedian boyfriend Burrs (Jimmy Mavrikes). With its over the top energy and design choices, Constellation seamlessly inhabits the whiplash tonal shifts of the script as Burrs and Queenie regularly interrupt the festivities with increasingly morbid conflicts. Putting on such a show with a little moderation might risk its flow becoming contrived, but because this exists in such an already high-pitched world, it never feels anything but natural.
This conflict plays out in a matrix of affection introduced when Kate (Kari Ginsburg) and Black (Ian Anthony Coleman) arrive at the party: Queenie pursues Black to humiliate Burrs, Kate aims for Burrs out of simple lust and Burrs and Black compete for Queenie. The interplay between this quartet ramps up in the second act as their harmonies get more frequent, and while each member turns in a stellar performance in a vacuum, they don’t always play off each other quite as well as they could (Kate is a standout, but it comes at the cost of occasionally drowning out the other three).
Still, the raw talent on display can’t be denied. Queenie’s demure detachment, Burrs’ sadism, Black’s imperiled innocence and Kate’s desperate desire to be the life of the party at all costs all shine through as clear as the glitz on their costumes.
The supporting cast has time to shine themselves. In fact, The Wild Party is the first musical I can remember in some time where I never once lost interest during the interludes of the side characters. Madelaine True (Rachel Barlaam) steals the show with her hilariously vulgar lesbian anthem “An Old-Fashioned Love Story”, and Eddie (Calvin Malone) and Mae’s (Emily Zickler) “Two Of A Kind” provides a welcome wholesome counterweight to the disfunction of Burrs and Queenie’s relationship.
The Wild Party isn’t a show that asks for much on the surface: it’s a party, things get wild. Stockman knows what makes the script tick beyond that though, and her production gives plenty to love even for those who aren’t fans of debauchery.
The Wild Party runs through October 29 at Source Theatre, 1835 14th Street NW. $25-$55. Buy tickets here.
