The Blade Of Jealousy, Henry Ong’s contemporary updating of a 17th-century Spanish screwball farce, proves a misfire for the writer of the justly lauded Sweet Karma, a misdirected, overacted, and mostly laugh-free World Premiere now playing Sundays at Sherman Oaks’ Whitefire Theatre.

 Things start out promisingly enough with best buds Melchor (Terry Woodberry), straight, and Ventura (Eddie Mui), gay, fresh off the plane from Cedar Rapids and savoring all L.A. has to offer its out-of-town visitors. (“There are so many cuties!” exclaims Ventura as he snaps pix of Whitefire audience males, proud to have discovered a way to photograph strangers without them realizing it: “Just pretend you’re doing something else,” he squeals.)

Concerned about his best friend’s “poor depraved soul,” Melchor suggests a visit to the Cathedral Of Our Lady Of The Angels, where the hetero half of the duo finds himself instantly enraptured by an elegantly bejeweled, burqa-clad woman with fingers “so delicate, even the water quivers on contact.”

 The mystery woman turns out to be a certain Señorita Magdalena (Natalie Amenula), there with her thickly accented, ever reproving servant Quiñones (Cynthia Dane), the former of whom soon finds her purse snatched by an unknown assailant, then quickly recovered by our head-over-heels hero.

Then, for some reason that must have made sense to Spanish playwright Tirso de Molina back in the 1600s, Melchor gives Magdalena his own bag rather than the one he has recovered from the purse-snatcher, insisting that she keep it until the rightful owner shows up with hers.

 It soon becomes clear (to us if not to Melchor) that Magdalena is both the mystery woman in black and the dating site match the Cedar Rapids native has come to L.A. to meet following months of texting and phone chats, and though his online hookup (whose face he has never seen) has the benefit of wealth, it’s Magdalena he now wants, a fact that soon has Magdalena of the Internet jealous of Magdalena of the Cathedral (which at the very least explains the play’s original Spanish title, La Celosa De Sí Misma, or Jealous Of Herself).

 Meanwhile elsewhere in L.A., Magdalena’s brother Jeronimo (Juan Haro) makes the acquaintance of Angela (Carla Valina), whose face rings a bell, not because he recognizes her as the star of the TV soap “All My Boyfriends” in which she plays a promiscuous beauty whose facial recognition skills are so slight, she can only tell her boyfriends apart “by the size of their cocks,” but because both he and she live in his wealthy family’s Chinatown apartment complex. (“My family owns real estate from East L.A. to Rancho Cucamonga,” he brags.)

Thus begins a play that might have worked had Denise Blasor not directed her actors to take stylization to the extreme, overplaying every line, every movement, every gesture in exaggerated pose after pose after pose.

Are director and cast attempting to replicate the style of 17th-century Spanish comedies? If so, it not only doesn’t yield comedic results, it makes it difficult to judge Ong’s play on its own merits, though it is clear that some jokes (including multiple contemporary references) hit the mark better than others. Still, even Molière at his best would be sucked dry of laughs if overplayed to this degree.

 Aside from a comic-book-style purse-snatching sequence, about all that works at the Whitefire is sound designer/musician Longo Chu’s live-and-prerecorded tango-esque musical accompaniment on keyboard and cello, Diana Cignoni’s L.A.-establishing, scene-setting video design (sadly absent from production stills), Blasor’s terrific costumes, and Derrick McDaniel’s as always expert lighting design.

The Blade Of Jealousy is produced by Bryan Rasmussen and Stella Ong. Brandon Loeser is technical director.

 Sweet Karma, Henry Ong’s 2013 look back at the life and death of Cambodian genocide-surviving Oscar-winner Dr. Haing S. Ngor, revealed its author’s play-writing gifts to powerful effect. If only The Blade Of Jealousy did the same.

Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.
www.whitefiretheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
July 1, 2018
Photos: Ivelisse Photography

Tags: Henry Ong, Los Angeles Theater Review, Whitefire Theatre