Review: Main Street Players take a chance on comic new work

Maya Ibars as Ruth and Keith J. Suranna as Denny in the Main Street Players production of John Mabey’s “The New Newer Normal” running through Sunday, March 9 at the playhouse in Miami Lakes. (Photo courtesy of Main Street Players)

Main Street Players is the little theater that could. In 2017, it went from being community theater for 42 years to presenting its first production as a professional company. Since then, it hasn’t shied away from ambitious works as is the case with its latest show, “The New Newer Normal” by Atlanta-based playwright John Mabey.

The company was introduced to Mabey’s play in 2023 when it was submitted and won MSP’s New Play Competition. Now it’s a fully staged production at the Miami Lakes playhouse.

Mabey’s play is influenced by television sitcom, has the stage banter of Neil Simon, and the door slams and over-the-top hilarity of Noel Coward. There’s also Coward’s penchant for everyone downing a stiff drink to make everything OK. In Coward’s plays it’s usually a martini, in Mabey’s it’s a margarita.

The plot concerns husband and wife Denny (Keith J. Suranna ) and Ruth (Maya Ibars), empty nesters who have reached a point in their four-decade relationship where they’ve (well, at least Ruth) come to a crossroads. They sleep in separate rooms. Denny says it is for his wife’s benefit to allow her to get sound sleep away from his snoring but it’s more a symptom of the couple’s growing separation.

Maya Ibars plays Ruth whose four-decades long marriage to Denny, played by Keith J. Suranna needs a pick me up. (Photo courtesy of Main Street Players)

Adding to the situation is Ruth’s mother, Beverly (Emalie Belokon), a no-holds barred octogenarian, who lives with the couple. There are also the couple’s two grown children,  Kenneth (Malik Archibald), an isolated, anxious germaphobe, and his sister, Jules (Elizabeth Chavez), a recent college dropout who has returned to her parents’ home with her bisexual boyfriend, Alfie (Freddy Valle); the two were also recently arrested for shoplifting.

The living room set (full of kitsch and a lived in feel in a design by Jacob Brown) for the first act is filled with boxes. Ruth is having a yard sale to save up for a cruise she’s hoping to go on with her husband. Mabey’s funny signs produce the first laughs: “Yard Sale: Our crap can be your crap! “We paid too much, you won’t.”

The play is set in late 2021 early 2022 with the intention that the characters are trying to return to a new normal after COVID-19.

Mabey says in his notes: “Fully vaxed and now ready to face the world . . . what’s normal after 2020? And what comes after the “new normal.”

It’s the one throughline that doesn’t work very well. There’s nothing that jumps out that solidifies that this needs to be set post COVID. There are a couple of lines here and there, mostly with son Kenneth, who became even more reclusive during the pandemic. And the couple finally wanting to break free, but if Mabey did want to drive home the message, perhaps this is why the couple’s marriage is failing after being stuck in quarantine. If the message is in there somewhere, it’s not apparent.

The cast of Main Street Players’ “The New Newer Normal” from left, Freddy Valle, Elizabeth Chavez, Maya Ibars, Malik Archibald, Emalie Belokon and Keith J. Suranna. (Photo courtesy of Main Street Players)

Trying to weave this subplot into the play doesn’t serve it. “A New Newer Normal” could be fine with the story of a zany family reuniting to sort through their baggage together much like they each sift through the old remnants ready for the yard sale.

Angie Esposito has taken a play that has never been fully staged and done magic with it. The director makes it look easy to move six actors throughout the space at Main Street’s small stage, at one point even all of them together. The pace is on point and precisely right to keep the play, which requires high energy, never letting up for its one hour and 40-minute run time (there is a 15-minute intermission).

There is a flurry of costume changes, which add to the characters and the comedy. Kudos to costumer Tabita Verdasa for pulling it all together from the house clothes in the first act to switching to sun hats and cruisewear, along with a tux for Denny. There are as many costume changes as a Cher show. (A Cher song figures into the play.)

In a fun twist in the casting, Mabey’s listing of characters says that Beverly is a female in her 80s. There is no notation in the script that the character be played by someone other than an older actress but in this fun bit of casting, it’s obvious that Belokon is dressed up, made up and acting like “The Golden Girls’ ” Sophia Petrillo. Verdasa has plopped a gray wig on her head; in the small space, you can see makeup lines that are supposed to create the illusion of wrinkles. In other scenes, Belokon as Beverly has her face slathered in night cream.

Malik Archibald as Kenneth and Freddy Valle as Alfie in John Mabey’s “The New Newer Normal” at Main Street Players. (Photo courtesy of Main Street Players)

If Mabey didn’t envision the role this way, is a farcical device that works, and he should consider keeping it. Belokon never tries to convince the audience that she’s anything but a decade’s younger actress playing a feisty and flirty senior citizen. Mabey’s running gag of Beverly’s is that she’s slept with everyone from Ronald Reagan to Frank Sinatra and taught Madonna how to vogue when she was a dance circuit queen.

Belokon and Valle, who doubles as the young Beverly’s husband, have wonderful chemistry in a flashback scene and it makes sense when we see the actress youthful, making the granny charade all the more heightened.

As Ruth, Ibars plays a woman who wants to “live” again even if it means leaving everyone behind. Surrana as Denny finds his way through the character who comes to his own realization near the end of the play. Archibald is entirely believable and has great comic timing as his character is tasked with more than a few moments of being surprised and sneaking up on others. Each time, it seems like it’s the first time it’s happening. Difficult to pull off in a stage role that is full of repetition.

Chavez and Valle have a good rapport as girlfriend and boyfriend. Chavez plays best when she’s acting either with Valle or Archibald. Her scenes with Suranna as Denny lack what this father and daughter bond should be. To be fair, her character is probably the least developed, one of the only supporting characters in the ensemble cast.

Malik Archibald and Freddy Valle goof around on a cruise ship while Emalie Belokon and Elizabeth Chavez look on. (Photo courtesy of Main Street Players)

Valle is wonderful all the way around in dual roles — the squatter who has a big reveal at the end (the reveal is a bit too fantastical and requires a large amount of buy in, perhaps too much to really tie things up) — and as the tender husband in the flashback scene. Ina Ruiz manages the sound for the small space perfectly (and not an easy feat) from a blaring ship horn to dance music. Lighting by Ricky J. Martinez follows the same – not too harsh for the intimate theater but the right tones to see the actors and provide mood.

Mabey has a knack for comedy and the quick snaps necessary to get laughs but the play could use a few nips and tucks here and there (90 minutes with no intermission would probably be more suitable) and losing the COVID theme would make sure “A New Newer Normal” doesn’t become dated. But then he may have to change the title.

Congrats to the playwright for his first fully staged production of this play and raise a glass (a martini or margarita) to Main Street Players, its cast, crew and director, for their commitment to new work.

WHAT: “A New Newer Normal” by John Mabey

WHERE: Main Street Playhouse, 6812 Main St., Miami Lakes

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Sunday, March 9

COST:  $30,  $25 for students and seniors with ID

INFORMATION: 305-558-3737 or mainstreetplayers.com.

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