Larissa FastHorse’s “Fake It Until You Make It” — dynamically directed by Michael John Garcés in its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum through March 9 — is a farce that turns Indigeneity inside out. Two women apply for a grant to aid Indigenous causes. Both are neurotic, but one is white and the other Native. Who gets the grant? And, more importantly, who gets the cat?
Dripping with farcical tropes including slamming doors, mistaken identities, raunchy puns and frenzied physical comedy, those questions and more are (sort of) answered by the end as the play attempts to dissolve concepts of identity.
The vibrant nonprofit office complex (scenic design by Sara Ryung Clement) features the colorful work of various artists on its walls, including an image of a wolf and grimacing figure in headdress. Music (sound design by John Nobori) and lighting (designed by Tom Ontiveros) are similarly energetic and fun, and the wide array of costumes (E.B. Brooks) are fitting for each character.
Wynona (Tonantzin Carmelo) and River (Julie Bowen) run neighboring nonprofit organizations and compete relentlessly due to Wynona resenting River being white while serving Indigenous youth. Meanwhile, Wynona runs N.O.B.U.S.H., whose mission is to eradicate an invasive plant species called buddieja, or butterfly bush, the seeds of which River deliberately scatters in surrounding pots just to get Wynona’s goat.
For her part in the rivalry, Wynona routinely steals River’s cat (a realistically furry prop aided by meowing sound effects) and gets her white boyfriend Theo (Noah Bean) to impersonate a no-show job candidate River is supposed to interview named Mark Shortbull.
Of course, River hires Theo thinking he is Mark so she can indicate on the grant application that her nonprofit’s staff is 50% Native, further adding fuel to the farcical flames as Theo maintains a dual identity, wanting Wynona to marry him (which she won’t, because he’s white) while allowing River to flirt with him.
Fortunately, Bean juggles the demands of his role well, including its requisite overwrought gestures and one-liners. He makes his over-the-top interactions with other characters feel natural, in contrast to Bowen and Carmelo, who seem have been directed to overact everything to underscore the farce.
That’s unfortunate because the funny scenes might actually be funnier if the nimble Carmelo could modulate her character’s constantly high level of frenzy by playing Wynona more straight and becoming hysterical only when necessary.
Instead, because Wynona is only ever negotiating her confused feelings for Theo, pulling up buddieja or sneaking off with River’s cat, her character is a missed opportunity for the play to voice her motives more deeply and interestingly.
Meanwhile, Bowen’s character is inherently a caricature of a white woman wanting to be something else so the overacting actually supports that, and Bowen handles it well. A scene in which River enacts a sacred water ritual in a coarse way while scantily dressed is physically challenging and funny, but also cringingly cliché.
There are also many jokes playing off “no bush” and “puss” that strike similarly shallow notes—funny but kind of hackneyed. While puns and such are expected in farce, one wishes for a more meaningful plot or meatier characters for the gags to matter, to feel, for example, why it’s frustrating for Wynona that her nonprofit gets so many calls about Brazilian waxing.
As the three leads race around each other, three supporting characters do the heavier thematic lifting. They are also younger and perhaps therefore comfortable living with more fluid identity concepts (as well as using their phones for live-streaming instead of tossing them into plants).
Krys (a delightful Brandon Delsid) identifies as “two spirit”—embodying both masculine and feminine genders—while quirky Grace (Dakota Ray Hebert) runs a nonprofit supporting “race shifters,” those who choose to identify as different ethnicities, just as she seems to change her own cultural identity daily. And when the real Mark (Eric Stanton Betts) makes a late appearance, it only further entangles the riotous identity situation.
The play thus offers many lenses through which to challenge notions of race and gender—including a hilarious science-based plot twist near the end—successfully inverting what we might think of as true and fixed. It’s a refreshingly lighthearted way of sending up those concepts, though a more substantive story would have made it more interesting as well.
“Fake It Until You Make It” continues through March 9 at Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, with shows Tuesdays through Fridays at 8:00 p.m., Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and Sundays at 1:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Tickets start at $40.25, including fees. For tickets and information, call the box office at (213) 628-2772 or visit CenterTheatreGroup.org. Run time is 78 minutes with no intermission.