A bi woman about to marry the man of her dreams fears losing the community of gay women who welcomed her during her lengthy relationship with a lesbian in India Kotis’s Bisexual Sadness, a laughter-and-drama-packed Road Theatre World Premiere guaranteed to get you thinking and talking about sexuality and gender in new and unexpected ways.

Ex lovers Faye and Genevieve (Tiffany Wolff and Alaska Jackson, from the production’s “Vincent” cast) may have broken up several years back, but the twosome’s love for each other has survived that breakup, albeit no longer as romantic partners.

No wonder then that it’s Genevieve who’s accompanying her lover-turned-bff today in search of the perfect traditional white wedding gown (one with pockets), an excursion that has the onetime couple reliving the past and contemplating a future that only one of them has the option to opt for.

And there’s no denying that the man Faye is marrying (Philip Smithey from the “Roxanne” cast) is a catch: tall, handsome, gainfully employed as a (get ready to “aaaah”) preschool teacher with a knack for conflict resolution between two-year-olds, and most importantly, entirely comfortable with his physician fiancée’s romantic past and her continued friendship with Genevieve.

Also along for the eighty-minute ride are Faye’s older sister Miranda (Roxane cast member Amy Tolsky) and Miranda’s early-teens offspring Naomi (Naomi Rubin, also from the “Roxanes”), whose announcement that (in Miranda’s words) “she wants to be ‘they’ now” has thrown Mom for a loop almost as much as news that her estranged husband and his 24-year-old girlfriend are moving to Massachusetts, which is why she and Naomi will be crashing at Faye and Alex’s place tonight, and for who knows how long.

Completing the cast of characters is Genevieve’s free-spirited aerialist girlfriend Lilian (“Roxanne” cast member Samira Bejia), who seems more committed to her “primary partner” (a man) than she is to Genevieve, but hey, if it works for them…

Still, no matter how “over” each other Faye and Genevieve may be, and even though Wolff and Smithey, playing opposite each other for the first time, have us convinced in Faye and Arthur’s own solid connection. there’s no denying that love lives on between Faye and her ex, and the fact that Wolff and Jackson are a real-life couple makes this especially palpable,

It’s Faye’s “bisexual sadness” at losing what she and Genevieve once had that gives Kotis’s play its title, and its poignancy amid the laughs, and expresses precisely how Faye feels knowing that by marrying a man, she may no longer being seen as queer, an identity loss she has already begun to mourn.

Playwright Kotis deserves major snaps for tackling issues not often spoken about in the LGBTQ+ community, where not all L’s and G’s feel an affinity for the B’s among them, and may see Faye’s relationship with Genevieve as an experimental blip on her way to a heterosexual marriage, or her marriage to a man as a way of conforming to societal norms, neither of which is true.

Still, as thought-provoking and eye-opening as Bisexual Sadness most definitely is, it’s also terrifically entertaining, and blessed with pitch-perfect performances under Carlyle King’s incisive direction.

Wolff’s utterly real, absolutely incandescent Faye and Jackson’s dynamic, instantly likable Genevieve had me tearing up from the get-go at all the could-have-beens, and leading men don’t get more charismatic or appealing than Smithey’s Arthur, whose chemistry with first-time stage partner Wolff had me torn between two lovers.

Tolsky adds another quirky gem of a supporting turn to her lengthy resume opposite Rubin’s heartachingly real Naomi, and Bejia is a hoot and a half as the free-spirited Lillian.

Bisexual Sadness looks fabulous too on Katrina Coulourides’s stylishly decorated living room set (properties by Scottie Nevil), gorgeously lit by Derrick McDaniel as are Jenna Bergstraesser’s just-right costumes, with Christopher Moscatiello’s energizing sound design and Ben Rock’s clever projections completing another Grade A Road Theatre production design.

April Webster is casting consultant. Not reviewed here are “Roxanne” cast embers Liz Fenning and Bex Taylor-Klaus “Vincent” cast members Andrea Flowers, Brian Graves, Gloria Ines, and Karrie King.

Bisexual Sadness is produced by Danna Hyams, Ray Paolantonio, and Barbara Muller Wittman. Elizabeth Herron is assistant director. Maurie Gonzalez is production stage manager. Darryl Johnson is production coordinator. David Elzer is publicist.

A part of me wishes I’d caught Bisexual Sadness earlier in its run so that those reading this review had more than a single additional week of performances to catch it, but I feel particularly fortunate to have been there to witness the alchemy that occurs when actors play opposite new scene partners for the very first time.

Still, no matter who you see in the production’s few remaining performances, the play remains (as Shakespeare so aptly put it) “the thing” and in the case of India Kotis’s Bisexual Sadness, the play is something very special indeed.

The Road Theatre, NoHo Senior Arts Colony, 10747 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood.
www.RoadTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
October 28, 2023
Photos: Peggy McCartha

Tags: India Kotis, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Road Theatre Company