They want to dress like women, act like women, and be perceived as women. And if the illusion is complete enough that it attracts a man's attention, all the better, except that is where the game must end. Any further step toward consummation of the misapprehension would suggest homosexual inclinations �" and that is a transgression that cannot be accepted. While most of the men in Casa Valentina have wives with whom they, presumably, have occasional sex, when they gather for weekends in the Catskills to live out their cross-dressed longings, it's all about coffee klatches, cocktails, board games, and occasional dusting.
"Most guests like doing housework" �" i.e., "women's work" �" "because they say it makes the experience more complete," says one of the resort's hosts to a newcomer ready at last to share his transvestite urges with other like-minded weekend shieldmaidens. Set in 1962 and based on an actual establishment, it's a curious world where the transgressive is meant to replicate a stultifying, sexless normative.
Harvey Fierstein's most recent Broadway play, the opening production in New Conservatory Theatre Center's new season, pulls us into this contradictory world where matters are variously comic, touching, angry, and frighteningly underhanded. Director Becca Wolff has gathered these pieces together into an intriguing whole on Kuo-Hao Lo's multi-purpose set, and even when the play strays away from intimate human revelations into political speechifying, it is never less than engrossing.
Men in dresses have long been a comedic stage staple, and still are, as evidenced by the number of movie and TV parodies that are non-stop presences on local stages. But in those shows, the men become outsized caricatures of the feminine mystique, which is not at all what the men who visit Casa Valentina are about. Ready-to-wear dresses off the rack are the preferred garb. But still there are laughs in the I-feel-pretty transformations that can only be seen through the characters' eyes, and in their varying efforts to channel male behavior into presumptions of femininity.
Through much of the first act, the tone is light as the regulars gather for another getaway from their male-defined roles, gently bickering among themselves, taking a newbie under their wings, and welcoming a special guest. Employing a metaphor invoked in the play, that guest is a social-activist serpent in this Garden of Eden who comes bearing promises of increased social acceptance for the heterosexual transvestite but at a cost of ruining lives and exposing any hints of homosexuality. Casa Valentina is an idyll in tatters by the play's end.
The production is loaded with quality, committed performances in roles that don't allow for any self-consciousness in the cross-dressing. As Valentina, Paul Rodrigues projects a self-confidence that disguises imminent calamities facing the establishment that carries her name. He's also sometimes seen as George when various problems force him to go into town, and in whatever guise he needs to be in, his ever-faithful, long-suffering wife, played with warmth and well-hidden trepidation by Jennifer McGeorge, is by his side.
There is delightful work from the resort regulars, including Jeffrey Hoffman as a pseudo-southern belle, Tim Huls as a party-ready skirt-twirler, Michael Moerman as the hangdog senior, and Tom Reilly as a judge who can't quite disguise his officiousness even after exchanging his robes for a dress. Two newcomers upset the balance in this friendly clan, including Max Hersey, who blossoms before our eyes after arriving as a self-conscious ball of nerves; and Matt Weimer, as the activist hoping to enlist the vacationers in her let's-go-public agenda through both analytical arguments and destructive strong-arm tactics.
This is a production in which the wig master and costume designer get high billing, and deservedly so in the work by, respectively, David Carver-Ford and Keri Fitch. This Casa Valentina is dressed for success, and this production hits the mark.
Casa Valentina will run through Nov. 6 at New Conservatory Theatre Center. Tickets are $25-$50. Call (415) 861-8972 or go to nctcsf.org.