NPX Weekly Round-Up: Bad in Bed (A Fairytale) by Karen Saari
A delightfully quirky play about the importance of listening, plus some other plays I'm interested in this week.
A little shameless self plug— First Kiss Theatre is doing our second seasonal workshop series called “The Spring Seminars”. We started last Saturday (whoops, forgot to tell you all last week, sorry!) with a Video Game Writing course by Cyrus Adams, and are continuing this Saturday at 1pm EST with a course on writing Audio Drama taught by Monte D. Monteleagre and Alex Wolf! The final course will be taught by playwright Matilda Corey Schulman on creating a TV pilot out of your play.
If you’re interested, tickets are $5 for ALL 3 workshops! Click here to sign up.
Thanks, and happy reading!
I read a few plays this week, and was surprised at my lack of positive feeling towards some of them, unfortunately. I half blame this on my chronic pain being a persistent little bugger this week; ‘pain-ger’ (a portmanteaux of ‘pain’ and ‘anger’) can really screw up my opinions on things sometimes, cause I’m just so damn irritable! But this play, while definitely not perfect, was engaging, pleasant, and made me smile through my nerve endings conspiring to kill me.
I was drawn to Bad in Bed (A Fairytale) by Karen Saari for a few reasons, one being that it provides multiple roles for women over 30! So often in media women over a certain age (usually late 20’s or so) seem to disappear or be relegated solely to the roles of mothers or grandmothers, so when a piece of media shows a woman over 30 having an Actual Real Life that doesn’t just revolve around marriage or children, I want to highlight that.
Here is the summary of Bad in Bed… from NPX:
Charles’ third wife has just informed him she’s leaving. As he reels from the news and the reason she gives, he spends a weekend with his best friend Jack and their college friend Betsy, an up and coming author. Betsy, a former Wiccan, reveals a secret from their college days that could be the reason for Charles’ failed relationships.
Can Betsy help Charles win back his wife? Maybe, with the help of a Finnish coven.
Anything that mentions witches has me interested, that’s for sure!
The play opens with a pivotal moment in Charles’ life— his third wife, Annie Jo, is leaving him. Why? Because the man just doesn’t listen. As most adults know, if you don’t listen in a romantic relationship, a lot of things will be bad. This includes, not surprisingly, your sex life! Charles is chronically ‘bad in bed’ due to his poor listening skills, which we learn is probably just the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back in this particular marriage. While it’s initially quite humorous to see this scene of a woman just losing her shit on her husband and telling him he sucks in bed, we see this problem continue for Charles throughout the play.
Interestingly, what I noticed is that Charles’ inability to listen really only seemed to apply to the women in his life, such as his old college buddy Betsy (who is totally in love with him, or at least was in college) and his exes. While it is refreshing to see Charles not completely hate on his exes, we can tell as the audience that Charles is definitely the common denominator here. Jack, another college buddy, doesn’t seem to have this problem with Charles at all. To me, Charles is a classic case of ‘means well but has been in patriarchy mode too long without questioning it’ that a lot of men, both real and fictional, can sometimes stumble into.
I liked the physical comedy present in this play, especially through a witchy sequence (no spoilers!) involving Deb (another character that Charles, Jack, and Betsy went to college with). There are props, costumes, all drawn together with unintelligible (by non Finn speaking) chants that I imagine would leave a live audience rolling on the floor. I loved how Jack added to the humor by attempting to film the ordeal on his phone!
What I learned from this as a playwright is that there is still merit in a “traditional” style of playwriting, where the climax happens exactly where it should and the scenes are paced meticulously. Even though I tend to write and prefer more “wacky”/experimental-ish work, there is a reason that there are playwriting ‘basics’ that us theatre makers are taught in school. They work, and if it fits your vibe and artistic process, then great! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. While I found parts of this play a little boring or “predictable”, and sometimes longed for something to be visualized or explained in a less “realistic” way, I know that is totally my own bias talking. This is very clearly a well written, paced, and thought-out comedy, and I think it’s a good example of why we learn those basics.
Here is my official recommendation from NPX:
An absolutely delightful comedy full of word-play and physical humor that highlights why listening is perhaps the most important part of a relationship. I liked how Saari displayed Charles' subtle (and not intentional!) misogyny, showing that society really does teach men some harmful things-- but that they can be unlearned. A very positive play overall with lovely, bubbly, and realistic characters.
Have you read this play? Let me know what you thought by replying to this email or messaging me on the SubStack app!
Here are some other plays that excited me this week:
its been ten years since everyone died (a play about final girls) by Cesario Tirado-Ortiz
bloody noses by Matila Corey Schulman
Revenge of Eve by April Lavalle
Want me to read one of these plays? Want me to read YOURS? Reply to this email or message me on the SubStack app, and I’ll add it to the list!
Happy reading, and have a great week!
~Brynn