Riddled with clichés, jilted by stiff acting and all together unoriginal, 30 Dates was a huge disappointment.
The play centred on Priti (playwright Fenulla Jiwani), a south Asian professional in her mid thirties who is desperately seeking a man. With her biological clock ticking and pressure from her parents to marry and have children, Priti goes on numerous dates to try and find “the one.” From Internet dating to co-worker double dates to Facebook hookups, every facet of dating is explored. Unfortunately, it is about as fresh as last week’s left over curry.
From the impressions of her Indian mother to the “bridesmaid but never a bride” syndrome, this play was fortunate to book the Centaur theatre, typically such amateurish fare is left for high school auditoriums.
The reason the play rates so poorly, besides for being trite, was that a woman living in the 21st century, using Facebook to find dates, continued to act meekly on dates and actually considered that each extremely flawed suitor could be marriage material.
Jiwana attempted to make Priti desperate, but sheer banality ensued, sometimes pushing feminism back fifty years. When one of her prospective suitors decides not to eat during their restaurant date, Priti faces the audience and admits: “How can he expect me to have something to eat? I will look like a cow.” The audience reaction was justly silenced shock.
The closing remarks of the play sealed the deal; after not finding Mr. Right for a whole two hours, Priti meets two prospective matches just as she has finally given up her search for love. Love really does happen when you least expect it! And if that wasn’t subtle enough, the play concludes with Priti saying “I think the one may just be around the corner.”
The only glimmer of hope that 30 Dates had to offer was the performances of the supporting actors who played Priti’s suitors. They provided much of the laughter and delivered their lines naturally. A standout among them was Gabriel Grey, who played Navine, a mamma’s boy equivalent to an Indian Steve Urkel. Naveen danced and sang along with the Bollywood movie he took Priti to see, providing some of the show’s funniest moments.
30 Dates is full of clichés that usually make romantic comedies so successful, yet this is one date you won’t feel sorry you stood up.
