Beneath the Shimmering Surface Simmer Sexual, Class, Ethnic Tensions

At the party celebrating my parents’ 25^th wedding anniversary, I remember my mother, amidst family and friends, glowing and gushing: “How wonderful to have all of the people you love all together at the same time and place.” It is precisely this same sentiment that motivates Katherine (Bella Heathcote) and Josh (Jonah Platt) to throw the eponymous shindig in The Engagement Party to salute their engagement to wed in their swanky Park Avenue penthouse.

Set in 2007, the celebration is attended by Catherine’s parents, Conrad (Richard Bekins) and Gail (Wendie Malick of the TV sitcom Just Shoot Me), and the youthful, good looking couple’s college friends: Alan, a lefty academic (Mark Jacobson), plus the now-married Haley (Lauren Worsham) and Kai (Brian Lee Huynh). Also joining in the festivities is Josh’s boyhood pal, Johnny (Brian Patrick Murphy), a combat veteran. The action takes place entirely in Katherine and Josh’s posh penthouse, which is brilliantly rendered by scenic designer Alexandar Dodge with a revolving, multi-level set that is, arguably, a co-star of The Engagement Party.

Before the par-tay starts, through the fourth wall the audience can spy on the attractive couple enjoying an amorous private moment, then the doorbell starts a-ringing and guests begin arriving. At first blush, all’s well on the Upper East Side of Manhattan’s frilly front, as drinks are served, recorded jazz music (the source of some jibes) is played, and conversation flows along with the vino and, for Conrad, Bloody Marys. Both Gail and Conrad are, like their beautiful blonde daughter, tall and slim. Gail walks with a crutch/cane for the disabled; her husband is a well-to-do executive in a financial firm and staunch Republican (of Bush era vintage).

Kai (the Hawaiian word for sea), too, works in the financial sector and is the drama’s sole non-white character (Huynh is of Asian heritage and among his many credits is a 2018 production of Vietgone at Denver). He and Haley are new parents. Sporting an Aloha Shirt, down-to-Earth Johnny shows up, after having been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. (It’s hard to keep track of exactly which one of the endless conflicts, what with the endlessly nose-sticking U.S. imperialists – the nuclear armed USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group is now invading the waters off of Gaza and Israel in order to prevent “escalation,” without the slightest shred or sense of self awareness that the presence of the world’s largest aircraft carrier and an entire armada 6,000 miles from Washington is indeed itself a major act of military escalation. Don’t get me started!).

But beneath the amicable surface, tensions simmer. Conrad and Alan have verbal jousts over the accumulation of capital. Johnny serves as a reminder of the working class origins of Josh, who has gone from Canarsie, Brooklyn to Wall Street and Manhattan’s fabled Silk Stocking District. Referencing blue collar Canarsie’s mostly Jewish and Italian-American residents, Johnny wittily calls the old neighborhood “Little Yid-aly.” With her blonde, svelte, statuesque beauty, Katherine epitomizes the “shiksa goddess” that Portnoy and many Jewish boys have supposedly lusted after. Did Josh have an ulterior motive in seeking out Waspy Katherine – who hails from a far more well-to-do family – at the (presumably) Ivy League university they attended?

When their former classmate Kai discretely seeks help from Josh in the kitchen and is snubbed, even after he confides that his wife has been experiencing major problems, playwright Samuel Baum begins to turn up the heat in his one-act play. But when something extremely valuable goes missing, The Engagement Party hits the boiling point, and the genteel façade of these middle-to-upper class (with the exception of proletarian Johnny) characters begins to melt away. Baum’s drama enters Edward Albee-type territory, with secrets revealed, pretenses torn away, motivations questions.

Your humble and most obedient reviewer was unable to foresee some of Baum’s creatively crafted plot twists and turns, which keep theatergoers guessing and on the edge of their seats. Gail’s use of a cane is a metaphor for how her marriage has crippled her, as viewers find out in one of the work’s biggest surprises. Yet, while Conrad may turn out to be less than meets the eye, like another stage father, Polonius in Hamlet, he dispenses some of the play’s sagest advice. Beneath her sweet surface, Katherine is capable of a prickly sense of betrayal. At times, The Engagement Party is a politically engaged work, and by the end of Baum’s well-written drama, one wonders if Katherine and Josh’s courtship will even survive this night-long ordeal and become disengaged?

Tony Award winner Darko Tresnjak adeptly helms his ensemble as they seamlessly move from room to room in the duplex’s revolving stage in this West Coast premiere of The Engagement Party (he originally directed the world premiere at Hartford Stage). All of the performances are spot on and Dodge’s set is a marvel to behold that deserves to be remembered at awards time. Baum’s previous works include HBO’s 2017 The Wizard of Lies (starring Robert De Niro as Ponzi scheme-ster Bernie Madoff) and the 2009-2011 Fox TV series Lie to Me, and it seems that this playwright/screenwriter is obsessed with a quest for the truth. (Baum, a Harvard grad, also exec produces the current NBC series The Irrational, about a behavioral psychologist.)

Presented without an intermission, the 80-ish minute The Engagement Party is likely to engage serious, adult ticket buyers and is highly recommended.

The Engagement Party is being performed at 8:00 p.m. Wednesdays - Saturdays, and on Saturdays at 3:00 p.m., plus Sundays at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., through Nov. 5, 2023, at the Gil Cates Theater, The Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90024. Tickets and info here; (310) 208-2028.