Under Her Skin (Stage Thoughts: Skintight, The Gil Cates Theater)

1562720863_info_image_SkintightThere’s a very very funny thing happening at The Gil Cates Theater at The Geffen Playhouse in Wetwood, and the Ms. Elsa from Frozen herself Idina Menzel is in the middle of it.  In Joshua Harmon’s ‘Skintight,’ she is front and center and she is both hilarious and touching as Jodi. Jodi is a woman of a certain middle age, and her husband has just divorced her, trading her in for a younger model. She runs away from California to New York, partly to escape from her current situation, and partly to help celebrate her father’s 70th birthday. Her father, Elliot (played by Harry Groener) is sort of a Calvin Klein figure, a fashion mogul once married to a woman but with a string of boy toys to his name. He is now settling down with Try, twenty years old, and the same exact age as Benjamin, his grandson by Jodi. They all converge on his tony NYC apartment, and….well, hilarity (and other things) ensue. Menzel is terrific here, with all her luminescent star power, equipped with razor sharp comedic timing and stage presence (you can’t stop looking at her) and she is  a diva in the greatest sense here, surrounded by gay men as he battles sassy zingers with them left and right. Harmon’s first play, ‘Significant Others’ is modern gay life specific, and I think ‘Skintight’ is as well, as the play comments on youth and life with a very gay sensibility – if that’s not enough intellectually, we get Trey, the boy toy played by Will Brittain wearing just a jock in a huge chunk of the first act (and it’s a glorious sight) I had a lot of fun watching ‘Skintight,’ some of it shallow, but fun is fun however one takes it!

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