To bring the rest of you up to speed, Lovely Uranus is a professional female impersonator, with sharp wit and irresistible zeal for living. She has elan for days and her outlandish drag only serves to complement her scintillating mien. She has a robust romantic life and spends ample time visiting the gay retirement home. A Lovely Goodbye is the fifth and last in Alejandro de la Costa’s “Lovely” series, following Lovely’s heartaches and triumphs, pratfalls and shining moments. We see how comparable her life is to the rest of us, losing the stigma without sacrificing magic. De la Costa shows us the practical mundane, along with glamorous.
A Lovely Goodbye finds Lovely’s erstwhile lover, Keith, moving in with her. Keith is eager to play bed blanket bingo, but something about renewing that arrangement puts her off. Then Keith brings Henry into the picture, yet another of Lovely’s romantic partners. The three manage to navigate this awkward situation without serious damage. If Keith waggles his cute, naked hiney a bit more often than he should, well, that’s just how he rolls. As we might expect from Lovely’s previous adventures, there’s no lack of sexual shenanigans and references to menage a trois, et al…. Lovely is exasperated and perplexed but never dejected.
Much to her chagrin, Lovely discovers she must deal with serious illness. Her nurse friend Roberta has been nagging her to get a lump checked. Sure enough, there’s something that requires surgery and her serious attention. Understandably, this is the last thing Lovely wishes to confront, so ironically, this fabulous, larger than life, exquisite soul is in denial. The rest of the play (please excuse my disclosure) deals with mortality and grief, but also celebrates the unimaginable strength that Lovely possesses, when needed. Even when she’s positively terrified, she still loves life enough to grope a doctor when she’s in the hospital. To the end, Lovely just brims with warmth, chutzpah and radiance.
MBS Productions presents: A Lovely Goodbye, playing July 19th-August 12th, 2018. Stone Cottage: Addison Conference and Theatre Centre, 15650 Addison Road, Addison, TX 75001. www.MBSProductions.net. 214-477-4942.