You got a problem with this?
The birthday boy does. He’s back from Harvard enduring a South Philly backyard celebration with assorted neighborhood types in all their glory when two of his bougie college friends show up.
Cringe cake or comedy?
Both, and more, in the EgoPo Classic Theater production of “Gemini,” penned by Albert Innaurato, a Philadelphia playwright and Central High School graduate.
People grow up in families, in neighborhoods, taking in, by osmosis, culture, habits, attitudes. And then, unsurprisingly, adulthood happens with new cultures, habits, attitudes.
The inevitable reckoning fuels “Gemini,” part of an EgoPo season focused on Philadelphia playwrights. Innaurato was just 25 when he wrote the play about Francis Geminiani, a quietly queer Harvard student celebrating his 21st birthday in South Philly, circa 1973.
It “certainly feels like a complex love story to the home, all the beautiful parts and all the ugly parts,” said director Dane Eissler, who grew up in similar circumstances in Franklinville, New Jersey, which he describes as a similarly gritty town 25 miles south of the Ben Franklin Bridge.
“Those feelings of home are so conflicting,” he said. “How do we grow up into the person we want to be without being trapped by who we could have been?”
“Gemini” runs Feb. 4-15 at Theatre Exile, appropriately located in the heart of South Philadelphia at 13th and Reed streets. In New York, “Gemini” became one of the longest-running non-musicals on Broadway, opening on May 21, 1977, and closing Sept. 6, 1981, after 1,819 performances.
The play’s main character “was an Ivy League student and from South Philly,” Eissler said. “Those two themes can seem like two different worlds, but in reality, we all carry the same hopes and dreams and pains. How can we look past those differences and see each other as people who need people?”
Eissler describes Innaurato’s play as a “backyard comedy,” meaning the laughs are generated by a motley collection of characters at Geminiani’s backyard birthday party.
On stage are Geminiani’s divorced father and his new girlfriend, plus neighbor Bunny — think Melissa Schemmenti from “Abbott Elementary” — with an “uncle” in every business. Also in attendance are Bunny’s overweight son, Herschel, and a brother-and-sister pair of WASPish siblings from Harvard.
Eissler, who lives in South Philadelphia, said the play has made him appreciate his neighborhood, its peculiar accent, its ballsy “addytude” and, of course, the food. As the cast assembled for rehearsals, they made it a point to sample Italian foods from the neighborhood. A favorite? Fiadone, a Corsican cheesecake made from sheep milk cheese.
But what really struck home for Eissler, he says, is a gentle understanding of family — his own family in particular. It’s a feeling he says he hopes transfers to the audience, as well.
“This show is reframing — making me appreciate all the times I’ve been frustrated with family and family is being frustrated with me. It’s hard work to hold a community and give each other a kind of familial support. I’m appreciating all the hard work and lifting up we’ve done for each other.”
Eissler says he salutes EgoPo for focusing on Philadelphia playwrights in its “American Voice – 250 years of Philadelphia Playwrights” season.
“Gemini” arrives on stage just as several Philadelphia theaters have collaborated to co-market a series of plays by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames, who lived in Philadelphia until last year.
“I think Philly has a pretty great playwright scene,” Eissler said, pointing to programs such as PlayPenn and InterAct Theatre Co. “There is a lot of fostering of playwrights in the community. I think Philly does have really good lineage of raising bold new playwrights.
“Philly also has a great new play scene,” he said. “You’ve got your playwrights, but then you have all the devisers,” the people creating new works, including solo clown and burlesque performers, “stemming from that Philly Fringe culture.”
EgoPo’s fall production was “Waiting for Lefty,” by Philadelphia playwright Clifford Odets. EgoPo also staged readings of works by playwrights Thomas Godfrey, a Philly playwright born in 1736 (“Prince of Partha,” 1767), Robert Montgomery Bird, who is buried in Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery (“Gladiator,” 1831), and George Edward Kelly, Princess Grace Kelly’s uncle and another Philly Pulitzer Prize winner for drama (“Show Off,” 1924).
Coming up May 7 is “Living Legacy,” a reading of works by Sonia Sanchez, a playwright and the city’s former poet laureate, and Natyna Bean, a PlayPenn member, created in 1982 and 2024.
FYI
“Gemini,” Feb. 4-15, EgoPo Classic Theater, at Theatre Exile, 1340 S. 13th St., Phila. Tickets available via EgoPo’s website.
