MY WHITE HUSBAND

Despite a promising setup, Leviticus Jelks’s My White Husband turns out to be an awkward mix of 1950s sitcom spoofery, marital discord dramatics, sex comedy raunch, network TV politics, and Black Lives Matter activism.

A canned laugh track punctuates the play’s I Love Lucy-inspired first scene, one that has African-American hubbies “Omar” and “Ricky” getting stuck side-by-side in their apartment doorway before the latter executes a pratfall to do The Dick Van Dyke Show proud, an opening sequence seeming to promise a classic-TV situation comedy spoof ahead.

The four-letter-word offstage marital copulation scene that follows (“Yes, daddy! Yes, Daddyyyy! Fuck me! FUCK ME!”) suggests a contemporary gay sex comedy, as do the skimpy leather BDSM harnesses sported by husbands Omar and Ricardo Williamson-Jacobs (Devere Rodgers and Clifton J. Adams) when they emerge from their bedroom in sweaty, post-coital bliss.

Then comes a phone call informing stand-up comic Omar that the pilot script he’s written for a TV sitcom based on his life with Ricardo has piqued the interest of none other than Susan Tiller (Amie Farrell), Vice President of Programming for Phoenix Studios, news that is music to Omar’s ears.

And if Ricardo isn’t quite as thrilled by his husband’s good fortune, it’s probably because he gave up a cushy six-figure salary as an Atlanta-based lawyer so that Omar could pursue his Hollywood dreams, and that even six months after the couple’s move to L.A., he still can’t find similar employment in the City of the Angels.

Disgruntled husband or not, Omar heads off to a meeting with Susan, whose megahit teen series The Lunchtime Spy Club not only gained her fame and fortune, it was Omar’s favorite show growing up, not the least because it starred teen heartthrob Julian Fisher (Brian Kimmet) as Beanie, who now wants more than anything to play sitcom “Ricky” opposite Omar’s “Omar.”

There’s only one problem. The real “Ricky” is black and Julian Fisher is white.

What follows is a series of scenes alternating between “live-in-living-color” real life (Omar finally gets to meet his very white, very straight longtime crush) and black-and-white fantasy sitcom sequences in which Omar’s “Ollie” possesses magic powers (like Bewitched’s Samantha or I Dream Of Jeanie’s Jeanie) which he is persuaded to use when ditzy neighbor Sunny (Farrell in Lucy Ricardo mode) begs him to help her win this year’s annual county tulip show.

So far so entertaining, if a bit all over the place, but this is before Omar attempts in vain to justify the casting of a white actor as his black husband, finds his attraction to Julian as strong as ever, has 1950s milkman Phil (Adams looking just like Ricardo) intruding into his real life (as a manifestation of Omar’s conscience?), and sees Ricardo’s involvement in BLM protests jeopardize not just his husband’s life but their once happy marriage … and by the play’s final scenes, any semblance of comedy has vanished, leading to the darkest of denouements.

Needless to say this is not what I had unwittingly signed up for, and despite the best efforts of director Melissa Coleman-Reed and her cast, by the end I found myself being preached to and itching to exit.

 At the very least, My White Husband looks good on the Moving Arts stage. Amanda Knehans’ black-and-white living room set morphs ingeniously into Susan’s office, Mylette Nora’s contemporary and 1950s costumes are a treat, and Max Brother’s lighting, Dana Schwartz’s props, and Nayla Hull’s sound design are all first rate.

My White Husband’s World Premiere is produced by Darin Anthony and Schwartz. Annika Hoseth is production stage manager. Carly DW Bones is intimacy coordinator. Scott Golden is publicist.

I’m not sure if I would have ended up enjoying My White Husband even knowing in advance that it wasn’t the lighthearted comedy romp I’d mistakenly assumed it to be. Either way, I ended up leaving the theater feeling downright let down.

Moving Arts Theatre, 3191 Casitas Avenue, Los Angeles.
www.MovingArts.org

–Steven Stanley
May 25, 2024
Photos: Mae Koo

 

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