Becky Shaw takes Venice

"No one respects a woman who forgives infidelity. It kept Hillary Clinton from becoming president!"

That's just one of my delicious lines in this super-smart, richly funny and irresistibly entertaining play. And the other four characters in the piece, each in his or her own acerbic, naive, hapless, sophisticated or indignant way, have even funnier things to say.

Becky Shaw, by playwright Gina Gionfriddo, gets rave reviews wherever it's produced, which at this point, since its premiere at the Humana Festival and then at Second Stage in New York, has been far and wide. Here are just a few snippets from rapturous critics from New York to London to Chicago and back:

"Gina Gionfriddo’s comedy of bad manners ~ a tangled tale of love, sex and ethics among a quartet of men and women in their 30s ~ is as engrossing as it is ferociously funny, like a big box of fireworks fizzing and crackling across the stage from its first moments to its last."

~ Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

"Becky Shaw is a refreshingly independent and even intermittently anarchic kind of play — well removed from the group-think that sometimes afflicts the theater these days. It's wise, complex and really very moving. Unerringly funny, too."

~ Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

"The play is a firecracker that takes common assumptions about family, love and the redemption to be found in kindness, and turns them upside down."

~ Ray Bennet, The Hollywood Reporter

"Watching this astute, acerbic and richly funny comedy by Gina Gionfriddo I was reminded of Neil LaBute, who, like Gionfriddo, deals with power and manipulation. But what she brings to a familiar dramatic theme is a surprising moral ambiguity."

~ Michael Billington, The Guardian

So if you you want to see a great, funny play, craftily directed by Ann Bronston, in which I'm honored to appear with some wonderful actors: Rachel Avery, Michael Hanson, Scott Jackson and Hilary Prentice, in an intimate space in Venice, California... which, as you must know, abounds in fabulous restaurants... then join us at Pacific Resident Theatre between tomorrow night (Thursday Oct 19th) and Sunday Nov 5th. Find the schedule and more info at www.pacificresidenttheatre.com.

And let the hilarity begin!