Chicken & Biscuits
Theater UCF, Orlando, Florida
Directed by Felichia Chivaughn
Starring Olamide Oladeji, Johnathan Sommervil, Dominique Marshall, Micah Brown, Phoenix, Jake Perez
Reviewed by Carl F. Gauze
I find funerals are much more interesting than weddings, especially when the decades reopen all the family’s bad mojo in one place at one time. Sure, good old Uncle What’s His Name is dead, but his passing becomes a rallying point for the family. And unlike weddings, mourners rarely try to outperform the last funeral in spectacle.
Tonight, the deceased’s name is unimportant; it’s the living who provide the entertainment. There’s not much money to pass out from the estate, but the service provides a chance to meet shirttail relatives and maybe pick up a mate.
Baneatta Mabry (Olamide Oladeji) is the responsible one in the family, you can tell by her rhinestone-covered hat. She wants a quiet, respectful service, but her wild and more desperate sister Beverly (Dominique Marshall) arrives seeking a husband that might stick around for a while. She’s also the fight captain, so beware. Other awkward events filter up, Son Kenny Mabry (Phoenix) brought along his friend Logan Leibowitz (Jake Perez), which proved awkward in many respects: he’s white, he’s Jewish, and he’s a guy. Crisis to the left of them, sexual politics to the right, into the powder keg of a church rides the entire cast. There are nine factorial possible commotions of pairing here, ranging from the ultra-straight-laced mom and pop running their own personal church to a complete new sexual pairing that may or may nor work well in time.
Running a church as a private enterprise may seem an odd career, but it happens all the time, and there are tax advantages. The core of the comedy here, (and there is quite a bit of it) lies in the family dynamic. We all have those outlier relatives, and while I may be one in my own family, we are just as entitled to show up, drink too much, and provide endless gossip for years to come. Put on a dark suit or a colorful dress, and get ready for family fireworks.
