Hedy Weiss
December 7, 2006
Chicago Sun-Times

Single mom braves the dating pool
'Bad Dates' uses clever writing, knowing humor

Theresa Rebeck's play "Bad Dates," now at Northlight Theatre, is chick lit designed for the theater. Easily consumed in a happily mindless, 90-minute sitting, it is spiced with just enough deft observations, easily recognizable eccentricities, clever writing and knowing humor to keep you engaged.

And it's got just enough truth to make you swear off blind dates (especially those arranged by your mother), dating services and heated encounters of the ex-boyfriend variety.

The show, which arrives here after its West Coast premiere at the Laguna Playhouse, also is a marathon test for its lone performer -- in this case, Beth Broderick, who is easily recognizable as Aunt Zelda from the TV series "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," and who has been zestily directed by Tony Award-winning actress Judith Ivey.

Broderick is Haley Walker -- divorced mother of a 13-year-old daughter, and Texas transplant to Manhattan, who has risen from menial restaurant worker to star restaurateur, thanks to the fraudulent activities of a Romanian mobster. Of course, to say that the actress performs solo is not entirely accurate; she shares the stage (a neatly designed New York apartment courtesy of Tom Burch) with about 300 pairs of spiky-heeled, pointy-toed, foot-devouring designer-label shoes. (There also is the wink-wink presence of a surly adolescent daughter who remains forever unseen behind her bedroom door -- a rather annoying conceit -- as well as periodic phone calls from her unheard gay brother).

But countering all this is a story with which many thirtysomething women with children -- suddenly tossed back into the shark-infested waters of the dating pool -- will identify. Back on her feet and in need of some male attention, Haley nervously dives into the deep. And every potential oyster either can't be pried open or quickly morphs into a frog (whether odd, arrogant, gay or otherwise engaged).

The whole thing unspools in a series of highly choreographed and decidedly manic attempts to put together just the right outfit for any given date, with each of these clever non-striptease turns executed by Broderick to delicious effect. (Costume designer Julie Keen has stretched the known possibilities of Spandex.) Of course, each time Haley steps out, she returns with another disaster to her credit.

The play is fun, though certainly not on the level of Rebeck's dinner party apocalypse, "Omnium Gatherum." While Broderick has both great energy and the razor-sharp focus required to keep things on track (and an accent with a hint of Kyra Sedgwick's character in "The Closer"), she doesn't quite nail Haley's utter despair. Or maybe she isn't supposed to be all that real.