‘Four Weddings and an Elvis’ @ Pocket Sandwich Theatre
Photo by Joel Hashop
—Hannah Kneen
For those of you who have never seen a show at Pocket Sandwich Theatre, it might be a surprise to find a place that does dinner and a show—and does it so well you’ll find yourself coming back for more. Their website boasts “professional quality, locally produced theatrical shows…blended with good food, drink, and a friendly, casual atmosphere.” And boy do they deliver.
Four Weddings and an Elvis by Nancy Frick is exactly what it says on the tin. As you might guess, it’s a comedy. The plot is centered around Sandy (Rose Anne Holman), the four-times-married-three-times-divorced owner of a Las Vegas wedding chapel who can’t seem to stop going back to her impressively useless husband. Her chapel has seen some strange characters over the years. The four weddings of the title are some of the funniest Sandy has experienced in her years in the business.
First, Stan (Nathan Willard) and Bev (Lindsey Nelson) are getting married as revenge on their exes. Their excitement is contagious—and clearly very entertaining to Sandy as she walks them through the wedding options she offers. They decide to have the “King of Rock and Roll” (or John, played by Cory Phillips) officiate the ceremony, which brings in another level of humor, as John weaves in references to Elvis songs at every opportunity. Sandy quickly susses out the strange circumstances of this match. The “blushing bride” and the “grimacing groom” are not on the same page at all, so of course everything blows up spectacularly. Props to costume designer Vicki Duval for finding blue suede shoes that go perfectly with a wedding dress, though. At least the wedding blows up with style.
The second wedding involves two washed-up celebrities, Bryce (Travis Cook) and Vanessa (Kristin Sutton Ford), who are getting married as a publicity stunt. They are impressively obnoxious. Meanwhile, Sandy is trying to hire a more reliable minister than her drunk husband/ex-husband. She ends up with Lou (Allen Matthews) who turns out to be much too old to play Elvis. He is also hilariously bad at reading the room…so putting him in the same space as Bryce and Vanessa is bound for catastrophe.
After encountering so many oddball reasons for people to marry, Sandy is surprised at the third wedding. It seems that Marvin (Dio Garner) and Fiona (Danielle Yoshiko Phillips) are getting married—get this—because they love each other. They are a very odd couple, being a postal worker and an ex-con, but they are ridiculously endearing. They face obstacles, of course, among them Fiona’s ex-boyfriend Fist (Michael Padilla). I’m not going to tell you how that conflict is resolved but I will tell you it was a fun surprise and an utterly perfect way to bring this unconventional couple together.
The final wedding brings this cast of colorful characters all together—and this ceremony is for Sandy herself. We get to see how everyone’s lives changed after their visits to the chapel. The twists and turns in Frick’s play are masterful, and handled very well by the cast and director Staci Ingram. Aside from some very minor hiccups, the performances are engaging and entertaining throughout. While I was never quite sure where the plot was going, I was happily along for the ride with every new set of characters. And through it all Rose Anne Holman’s Sandy was both genuine and thoroughly entertaining.
The technical aspects were brought together well, too. The set, designed by Robert Clark, had a small raised dais, some chairs that could be decorated differently for different weddings, a pew, an office space, and some nice stained glass windows through which the red and blue lights of cop cars could be seen (yeah, one of those weddings gets pretty exciting). I already mentioned the costume design by Vicki Duval; in particular, she handled the celebrity couple well. They had to have layers to their costumes, because when they realize there are no reporters at the chapel to cover the wedding they decide to get comfortable and remove some of their clothes to keep them from wrinkling. As you can imagine, this is fun for the audience and hilariously awkward for Sandy and Lou, who are stuck in the room with them.
Congratulations to director Staci Ingram for a job very well done—t was a joy to watch from start to finish. To top off a good show, the atmosphere at Pocket Sandwich was lovely and welcoming. This is definitely the place to go for dinner and a show…and it might just be a show I have to go see again.
WHEN: May 17-June 22, 2024
WHERE: 1104 S. Elm Street, Carrollton TX
WEB: pocketsandwich.com
