The cast: photo by Gary Ng. Spot on costumes by Anna Silva.
Presented by Theater UnCorked
By Douglas Carter Beane
Directed by David Miller
Fight Choreography & Intimacy Direction by Allison Olivia Choat
May 15 – May 18, 2025
BCA Plaza Black Box Theatre
539 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116
Critique by Kitty Drexel
“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” – Attributed to Andy Warhol. (The Smithsonian Magazine contests this attribution.)
BOSTON — There are days when life in the theatre feels like the lowest level in a multilevel marketing scheme. Famous artists and producers at the top of the pyramid (on Broadway and the West End) make the most money; their flashy success entices others to buy into the business: drama school, dance, voice, acting classes, accent coaches, pay-to-plays and voice-over camp. Semi-famous, professional artists and administrators who hustle like they’ve been conditioning since the womb make ends meet; they can afford niceties like starting a family without going into serious debt. The rest of us schmucks, to borrow a term from Theater Uncorked’s As Bees in Honey Drown, must work at least one (or three, if you’re a stage manager) side hustle to afford the theatre lifestyle.
It’s (sometimes, usually not) a living. We cut corners because we have to, or we go without. Everyone is looking for a cheat code to zip past the grueling years spent stabilizing a career to flip into instant success: no more auditions, no degrading gigs spinning signs or letting infants pee on your lap at kids’ parties. Just money, respect and a union card. Instant success doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t stop anyone from wishing it did.
It’s so hard to make it as a successful theatremaker/storyteller that the plot of As Bees in Honey Drown seems realistic: Evan Wyler (Michael Mazzone) is a hot, young writer with a best-selling novel on the national book lists and a topless photo in a glossy magazine. He’s made it! And he’s broke with no writing prospects in his future.
Firey agent to the rich and famous, Alexa Vere de Vere (Sehnaz Dirik), hires Michael, cash in hand, to write the script treatment for her one wild, precious life. David Bowie wants to play her father! The stars in Michael’s eyes shine so bright that he doesn’t even notice when Alexa stops paying for things with her cash and starts using his credit card instead.
Several days and a massive hotel bill later, Wyler realizes he’s been swindled and his dreams are dashed. Rather than let Alexa get away with her scam, Wyler investigates the woman behind the convincing English accent and the luxurious spending habits. He discovers a breadcrumb trail of broke and broken artists and executives that leads him to the real Alexa Vere de Vere and the truth behind her villain origin story. As Bees in Honey Drown is a story with a story about the costs of fame and that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Isabel Ginsburg, Lauren Elias, Ben Dawn and Bradley Belanger play a roster of loud and proud characters in the ensemble.
ABIHD is yet another vehicle to showcase the acting chops of Sehnaz Dirik. She, with Director David Miller and the other actors, brings believability and vigor to this 90s period piece.
It’s a fun show. We could all use some fun. Fun is an act of resistance in these times.
Dirik dominates the stage – This is both good and bad. It’s good because Dirik has an arresting presence and is more than up to the task of playing the multifaceted role of Alexa Vere de Vere. It’s bad because Dirik sucks all of the air out of room when she’s in it. When Alexa is meant to share the stage with other characters, or even cede it, Dirik doesn’t. That’s not in the character’s nature. As Wyler eventually finds out, a character like Alexa would never cede anything unless she’s about to steal something bigger and better. So too must the cast. When Douglas Carter Beane has written your character a center stage moment, even as your lines overlap into a montage, take the stage with the same energy. Don’t wait for her to cede it. You’ll have to pry center stage from Alexa/Dirik’s cold, dead hands as the gods intended.
The ensemble is otherwise doing great character work. They look to be a companionable cast that enjoys working together. By investing in each other, we believe in their characters and trust their worldbuilding.
The black box is small, sometimes cramped, but Director Miller and Scenic Designer Leonard Chasses carved out a payphone, a plush hotel room, and a photo studio. And, the cast still had room to stage a fight scene and a shopping spree in Saks Fifth Avenue.
A show like Theater Uncorked’s ABIHD could be used to indoctrinate younger, impressionable generations of theatre kids into the theatre lifestyle. It’s got the energy and the creative design elements to woo the right (or the wrong) youngsters.
I can see it now: A kid is walking the streets of Boston, minding their own business, only for a guy in a trench coat to call out from a dark alley. “Hey, kid,” he says from under his fedora. “You wanna try some lighting design?” He opens his tan trench coat to reveal gobos and gels sewn into the coat lining like illicit magazines or drugs.
“Gee, Mister, I don’t know,” you respond. But you coyly finger a Hobolite iris colored gel filter, and you’re hooked. What that guy doesn’t tell you is you’ll be chasing that high for the rest of your life.
Next thing you know, you’re running monologues with friends and volunteering to paint sets. You’ll stop after one last audition, you swear, but you’re out late every weekend. Selling tickets in the box office to keep up the habit. You pay for costumes and scripts. Every single penny not spent on food or rent will be spent on attending or performing in shows. Your parents suspect drugs, but you know it’s worse than any drug on the black market: the applause, she calls to you.
The theatre will take and take and give you sweet, addictive applause in return. You say it’s for the art, for the community, but what you really need is a hit of that applause dopamine rush. You’d do anything to obtain it. You’d sell your soul for it, and you do.
Friends, talk to your kids about the dangers of the theatre lifestyle before it’s too late.
