Con
life, heavy monologues in long ‘Separation’
By Monica Levette Clark
On-line Forty-Niner
 Remember
the movie “Six Degrees of Separation” released
in the 1990s where Will Smith (“Independence
Day,” “Men in Black,”) played a gay con-artist
who told everyone he met that he was the
son of Sidney Poitier? The story of John
Guare’s play is now showing at the Long
Beach Playhouse’s Studio Theater.
Guest director Martin Lang said the play,
written by John Guare, one of his favorites.
The play had a late start, the theater was
freezing cold, and there were too many long
monologues recited by several characters
throughout the play.
Set in New York City in the summer of 1990,
the play opened to a setting in a living
room with a black leather sofa, a beige
love seat, a wine table and a Kandinsky
painting hanging on the wall.
The beginning scene featured Louisa (Deb
Snyder) and her husband Flan (Robb Tracy)
hugging in horror over what they found early
in the morning.
After having dined with a young man, Paul
(Charl Brown) whom they invited to sleep
in a guestroom of their house, the evening
before, only to find him in bed with another
man — a stranger he picked up in the middle
of the night.
The story heightened from there as the Kittredges
find out that Paul has been going around
town, pretending to be the rich, older son
of Poitier. Paul explains to them that he
was beaten up, robbed and needed help, conning
their neighbors and two unassuming out-of-towners.
How did Paul get on the Kittredge’s good
side? He persuaded them into believing that
he was a school friend of their teenage
children who were away in college, and promised
to tell his so-called-father to give them
a part as extras in a movie version of “Cats.”
The story goes on to reveal details about
each character in the play that are contradictory
to how they portray themselves to be.
The play will run through May 31 at the
Studio Theater, with shows at 8 p.m.
on Fridays and Saturdays.
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