Arts & Events

Remember “American Gigolo” with Lauren Hutton and Richard Gere? Have you seen the series “Hung” on HBO? How about Holly Hunter’s touching scene in “Living Out Loud” when she purchases more than a massage to get her through a lonely night after her marriage fails? 

Women can now buy love for sale just like men. It seems that only 1-2% actually indulge, and those “ladies who do more than lunch” generally have lots of disposable income. Though surveys report 40% of those polled said they might if they had the opportunity, anonymity, and wherewithal. Women have careers without time for courting, or they are widows after 30 years of monogamy, or they just give up because nobody’s asking and they grew up in a world where you waited for romance to come to you. If they have the money, women can order up a one-night stand from an agency with little danger and no harassing phone calls or stalking thereafter.  

In Palomino, David Cale has written and performs a scandalous, sexy, yet touching tale of an Irish horse carriage driver in Central Park (imagine Colin Farrell). Into his cab comes a middle-aged, well-dressed entrepreneuse (imagine Glenn Close) who talks him into an arrangement to procure his lovely features, soft brogue, and virile talents for her upper class friend. A perfect job for a stud for hire since those carriages carry romance with them, and since research reveals that women usually seem to need romancing even when buying it—as if research were needed to reveal that. 

Perhaps the reason it works so well is that Mr. Cale resembles neither Mr. Farrell nor Ms. Close, but is a balding, gangly Irishman with a large nose and hatchet face, dressed in a shabby fedora, plaid shirt, jeans and unshined shoes. Upon this unlikely canvas of a man, his fleshed-out sketches of these lonely people begin at first a bit comical because of the incongruity, then become totally acceptable in a way that might not work if he had any of the physical qualities of his characters. 

Through monologues and playing both characters in a dialogue, David Cale enacts how the situation looks from the viewpoints of three main characters and three lesser ones. He slips into their bodies and walks and gestures like a shape-shifter. His change of accents is convincing, and one makes allowance for the occasional slip. His changes in rhythm and pitch help us envision them. 

The hilarity highpoint is Cale’s portrayal in mime of Marsha the pimp at a cocktail party; we’ve all been rapt at viewing a woman like this from across the room over the canapés and gin and watched her animated gesticulations over the din of the party.  

Cale plays the gigolo Kieran, the panderer Marsha, the conflicted Aussie widow Vallie with whom Kieran has more than a business connection, the overweight customer Ruby, the English blonde beach hottie Trish. Then he winds it up as the publisher to whom the gigolo takes his journal to cash in on the memoirs of his sketchy profession: the very publisher who turns out to be less than six degrees separated from the situation.  

The title choice is intriguingly connected if a tad abstruse; but I’ll leave that as a teaser for you. 

Community and loneliness is the issue in the play and in the lives of ourselves or our friends.  

The play spoke to me, though I personally am and by nature have always been hooked up one way or another, shy guy that I am. However, I have six friends: one is in a tired marriage and my other friends seem to have resigned themselves to a life alone though a few of them often long aloud for someone in their life. The stigma of online dating has faded, and electronic courtships are now mainstream. But it seems it’s just easier to watch TV and hang with one’s friend than “get into all that stuff” again. 

It’s a three-part POV drama in 90 minutes; it has no structural place for an intermission, so consider carefully before you have that second pre-curtain drink. 

The play is charming and relevant, Cale’s a charmer, and the story is stark and honest. Aurora once again has brought good stuff for your entertainment, enlightenment, and emotional exercise. 

Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St. Berkeley  

Playing Tue-Sun till December 5.  

Box office: 510.843.4822 / www.auroratheatre.org 

Written, performed and directed by David Cale, lights by Heather Basarab, projections by Rick Takes, sound by Andre Pluess, and stage management by Susan M.Reamy. 

“Eye from the Aisle” is the theatre reviewing name of John A. McMullen II, MFA, with editing by EJ Dunne.  

Notes to eyefromtheaisle@gmail.com