Millennials get their turn in the East West Players spotlight in Nathan Ramos’s World Premiere comedy As We Babble On, a crowd-pleasing Asian-American take on Friends with more than just laughter on its mind.

 Chief among the “babblers” is 20something aspiring graphic novelist Benji (Will Choi), living his dream at Dynamic Comics till “Racist Ted” his boss, seeing no room at Dynamic for an Asian superhero, gives a white guy the promotion that ought to have been Benji’s.

Fortunately for our now out-of-work-hero, the Babble stream run by his sassy lesbian roommate Sheila (Jiavani Linayao) is up to a whopping 734,000 followers, which means that all Benji has to do is set up a kickfund and with Sheila’s fervent fans’ help, donations allowing him to self-publish will be coming in in no time flat.

 Unfortunately for Benji, his roomie’s just announced plans to move out, the better to focus on a cookie-baking career certain to take off once she wins Miss Genevieve De La Cour’s bake-off competition with her scrumdiddlyumptious pistachio rose morcels.

 Meanwhile, Benji’s half-white half sister Laura (Jaime Schwarz) has news of her own—a date tonight with none other than multi-billionaire bachelor Orson Hui Lin Archer (Bobby Foley), an announcement that prompts Benji to propose that she use their soon-to-be-budding relationship to write an Archer family exposé for Buzzline, quit the barista job that introduced her to Orson, and her writing career will be made.

 Meanwhile out in gay bar land, Benji finds himself face to face with his Indian-American ex (Sachin Bhatt as Vish) looking nothing at all like the boyfriend he broke up with thanks to an eighteen-month fitness journey that transformed “a hot Bollywood Jack Skellington” into “a hot Bollywood Captain America,” and before long Benji is angry-kissing Vish like there’s no tomorrow.

Tapping into a generation whose lives can’t be lived without the entire world knowing everybody else’s business, playwright Ramos has created a hundred-minute romcom that may be dated five years from now but at this very moment couldn’t be more on-the-nose about the lives Millennials lead, the lingo that comes from their mouths, and the way social media shape their every move.

 Not only that, but Ramos’s eclectic cast of characters reflect today’s America in a way that make Chandler, Monica, Rachel, and their all-white Friends seem of another time, another place. (Benji is Korean, Vish is South Asian, and Sheila, Laura, and Orson are biracial, and while Laura quips that her half-Korean, half-German features tell the world “I’m exotic, but I also grew up next door to you,” others in her circle of friends find the racism they encounter on a daily basis far less of a joking matter.)

 It takes a while for As We Babble On to pick up steam (we don’t meet Orson till twenty minutes in and Vish doesn’t show up till the half-hour mark), and only the most alert will catch on to Benji and Laura’s family connection, but once the half-siblings’ romantic storylines take off, so does Ramos’s play, so much so that I wouldn’t have minded less of it at the beginning and an additional twenty minutes near the end, where things do tend to get a bit rushed.

 Director Alison M. De La Cruz elicits five all-around sparkling performances, from Choi’s adorable but self-sabotaging Benji to Bhatt’s sweet, sincere, über-hunky Vish to Schwarz’s gorgeous stunner of a Laura to Linayao’s ball-of-fire Sheila to Foley’s gazillionnaire mench of an Orson.

Rising scenic design star Tesshi Nakagawa has designed a multilevel, multi-locale set that snaps, crackles, and pops when complemented by Sheiva Khalily’s terrific graphic-novel-style projections and Jason Bieber’s expert lighting, with costume designer Danielle Domingue Sumi’s trendy, character-appropriate Millennials-wear, Rani de Leon’s electrifying sound design and Glenn Michael Baker’s perfectly picked props completing an all-around pizzazzy production design.

 As We Babble On is produced in association with the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Hazel Lozano is assistant director. Stephanie Galindo is assistant scenic designer, Nicole L. Blair is assistant to costume designer and fashion stylist, and Arthur Wong is director’s consultant. Meredith Anne Patt is dramaturg.

Brandon Hong Cheng is stage manager and Lydia Runge is assistant stage manager/assistant properties designer.

The most entertaining and promising original play I’ve seen at East West Players since Washer/Dryer debuted three years ago, As We Babble On concludes EWP’s 52nd season with sizzle and sass. 52 years old has rarely seemed so young.

East West Players, David Henry Hwang Theatre, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles.
www.eastwestplayers.org

–Steven Stanley
June 6, 2018
Photos: Michael Lamont

Tags: East West Players, Los Angeles LGBT Center, Los Angeles Theater Review, Nathan Ramos