In Hansol Jung’s sex comedy “Merry Me,” a lesbian army lieutenant gets locked up in the brig for the crime of seducing the general’s wife. So the lieutenant feigns heterosexuality to get out of jail and secretly satisfy all the frustrated wives and servicewomen on the base.
If that sounds vaguely familiar, you know your theater history. Jung’s wild, wacky and fast-paced 90-minute comedy, which opened Saturday at Diversionary Theatre in San Diego, is a sapphic twist on the 1673 Restoration comedy “The Country Wife,” about a male womanizer who feigns impotence to seduce other men’s wives.
But Jung also stirs in the setting and character names from Euripedes’ Greek tragedy “Iphigenia in Aulis,” and she turns the hermaphroditic Angel character from Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” plays into the narrator and shape-shifting provocateur in “Merry Me.”
This whimsical, surprise-packed play comically celebrates the characters’ search for self-identity and sexual fulfillment in a restrictive patriarchal society. It also questions the necessity of traditional gender roles and relationships.
Director Vanessa Stallings’ entertaining and breezy staging brims with razor-sharp wit, physical comedy and pop-out visual surprises. Claire Peterson’s costumes, Annelise Salazar’s lighting, Mathys Herbert’s army camp scenery and Padra Crisafulli’s sound and original music all bring vibrancy, fun and humor the storytelling.
Charismatic Michael Amira Temple steals the show as the all-knowing, mysterious and often-devilish Angel. Also excellent is the luminous Mak Shealy as Mrs. Sappho Memnon, the sexually frustrated wife of the general’s son, Pvt. Willy Memnon, who is endearingly played by Coleman Ray Clark as goofy, childlike and incompetent.
Instead, Sappho falls in love with the newly freed Lieutenant Shane Horne, who is subtly played with warmth and nuance by Winnie Beasley.
Andréa Agosto is an expert farceur as the comically conflicted base psychologist Dr. Jess O’Nope. And Troy Tinker-Elliott and Jacquelyn Ritz are playfully exaggerated clownlike characters as the base general Aga Memnon and his wife, Clytemnestra.
While theaterphiles will certainly appreciate all the inside jokes from plays of the past, I found that the sometimes unnecessary plot service to these references at times bogged down and complicated the script. Nonetheless, Jung has a smart, fresh voice as a playwright and “Merry Me” is a lively and fun outing.
‘Merry Me’
When: 7 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Through June 15
Where: Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Blvd., University Heights
Tickets: $11.50-$61.50
Info: 619-220-0097
Online: diversionary.org
