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Becky's New Car, in the second week of its run at ACT Theatre (tickets $10-$55; through Nov. 16) may be a winning, even heart-warming, comedy, but it feels about a year too late. The story of a middle-aged, middle-class wife who's bored with her marriage to an easy-going husband and paranoid about her economic future, only to find herself swept up into a dazzling affair with a comfortable rich man feels like a cautionary tale of late 2006.
Becky Foster is middle-aged, comfortably (and boringly) married to a mild-mannered roofer named Joe. Her twenty-something son Chris is a perpetual college student, well versed in his psychology but unmotivated to grow up. And Becky's being worked to death by her job at a car dealership. One night, a fabulously wealthy but utterly confused man named Walter Flood wanders in, desperate for a gift for his employees and thinking he wants to buy them all cars. His wife has recently died, and one misstatement by Becky (said in the past tense) leads him to believe that her husband is dead. Immediately he sees in her a new soulmate and lover.
The story takes a back seat to the production when it comes to winning over the audience. As Becky, Kimberly King delivers a marvelous performance. She addresses the audience directly, occasionally dragging them onstage for advice, and demanding scene changes of the theatre techs on occasion, such as when she forgets her keys at the office. It's a great approach, and pulled us somewhat reluctantly into the show.
Photo: Kimberly King as Becky Foster and Michael Winters as Walter Flood in the world premiere of Becky’s New Car by Steven Dietz at ACT, A Contemporary Theatre. By Chris Bennion.
As her deeply depressed widower co-worker Steve, R. Hamilton Wright delivers the funniest performance we've seen him give thus far. His scatterbrained Seattle enviro-liberal is brilliant. Overall, the cast was very strong. Benjamin Harris as Becky's son Chris also does a fine job psychoanalyzing everyone but himself. The two love interests--Charles Leggett as Joe and Michael Winters as Walter--felt a bit one-dimensional in comparison, but this is a comedy after all, so depth isn't everything.
So we left the theatre feeling pretty good about the play. The denouement was bit saccharine for us, but we sort of expected it. The only real problem was that it already felt like a period piece from a year or two ago. Back then, the "Bush Boom" was handsomely rewarding the rich while leaving the middle class to struggle with increased housing, insurance, and education costs. Dietz's script feels like a conscious attempt to write a corrective narrative, to tell the story of those left behind. Only problem is, today, with the collapse of the global economy, we're in an entirely different world. The ease with which Walter enjoys his wealth is (we can only hope) erased by new realities, and today Becky's stress level would be giving her heart attacks.
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