The Golden State is as compelling as it is relevant. It is a wonderful and refreshing rendering of the interior nature of a family strung out on stereotypes and practical reality. From the beginning of the play, one can connect with its happenings if they so choose, but The Golden State—though jovially—gets in your face, and makes all viewers sit and watch its ironic humor unfold. So beware…in a good way.
A more than decent update of Moliere’s The Miser, playwright Lauren Wilson packs significant societal ideals of the new millennium into one entertaining and complex family. Last names are not needed for one to affirm their knowing of this group, as “Cubby” (Tyler Olsen) and “Gertrude” (Joan Schirle) provides all the openness required for one to feel as if they are watching everything unfold from a love seat in the corner.
Even still, one should really meet the Hoppers—Gertrude Hopper, a withered, covertly racist, and superficial old woman who houses her adult children “Cubby” and “Sylvia” Hopper (Barbara Geary). The financially unstable reality for Gertrude and her children exudes through both the dialogue and alluding but miniscule stage makeup. Gertrude, however, comes home one day with a plan she believes is a golden way to see some money come their way. She wants her son Cubby—who has recently realized his homosexual nature—to marry her old and loaded girlfriend Bunny Schrimpf (John Achorn).
If that isn’t enough “catch,” Gertrude wants her daughter Sylvia—who is madly in love with their Hispanic handyman—to carry the frozen eggs of Ms. Schrimpf, who is, for some reason, unable to carry the baby herself. The bizarre nature of the mind of Gertrude Hopper both breaks down her family and fuels the play’s wonderful plot.
Where some creative productions focally give significance to main roles, The Golden State empowers the roles of the Hopper’s help—Ursula (Keight Gleason), Blanca (Laurabeth Greenwald), and Luis (Guillermo Calderon). Each of these characters are important to the understanding of The Golden State as a whole, as they help to bridge the gap between one laughing at and one identifying with.
Assumptions of lack of knowledge, low wage rates, and exploitation are all by-products of the issues surrounding the Hoppers, and it is aesthetically played out. Ursula and Blanca are the foreign maids who eavesdrop as much as they do clean. They give voice to the usually voiceless in upper middle class homes, with their brashness as well as their insight playing a vital role in the play’s success. Luis, the Hispanic handyman, provides the muscle for the stage, as he commandeers the heart of Sylvia and is unmoved by the crazed nature of Gertrude.
Gertrude Hopper’s character is timeless. Her concoction of the plan for Cubby and Sylvia is challenged in outlandishness only by her falling in love with a young man half her age, the ever so flamboyant Federico (Adrian Mejia), who it turns out is the love of her son Cubby’s newfound life. Joan Schirle brings ample enough life to this aging woman, who plays golf (kind of) and believes her marrying young men are feasible. Her character makes The Golden State go. Gertrude’s own benefit makes her go, and that most certainly entails money. Even at the play’s end, when the house has begun to burn down with most of the cast inside it, Gertrude is seen standing on the tallest prop on stage, holding the golf club carrying bag that holds her money high above her head, in a chivalrous attempt to save it. In the end she holds the money, Sylvia holds Luis, and Cubby holds Federico (the maids hold onto each other). Everyone lives happily ever after…sort of.
Very witty and very unorthodox, The Golden State is a play everyone should see. It is classically funny, and will have you testifying that what you are seeing is as true and spot on as the mirror that the play uses for its substance. It is Jerry Springer on its best day, with its most self-conscious and relatable guests, with a lot inside that they all must get off of their chests. Much is said in The Golden State. Listen. Laugh. Enjoy.
