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 Acutely Self-Concious; An Insider Joke
Debuting in 1997 and running for a year, AS BEES IN HONEY DROWN is both fascinating and deeply flawed, an acutely self-concious mixture of irony, satire, and insider jokes that only a truly wayward student of fine arts, high literature, and American pop culture can actually appreciate.
The plot is satirical. Evan is a "hot" writer who's first novel lands him a photo shoot in a popular magazine--and this in turn leads him to a meeting with Alexa Vere de Vere, a incredibly sophisticated woman whose life seems to be ultimate statement of success. But Evan is naive and Alexa is a con who preys upon the newly famous. When Evan realizes he's been had, he sets out to uncover Alexa's origins and to expose her before the world... if, that is, he himself can escape the honey-trap of fame and the easy life.
The script is clever--perhaps just a shade too clever. It isn't enough to have seen AUNTIE MAME; you have to recognize the dialogue. It isn't enough to have read Proust; you have to understand why it is funny in this context. When all is said and done, it's rather difficult to know what audience the play is intended to reach; playgoers and play readers who know both David and The Pet Shop Boys are fairly few and far between and the coldness of the story and the characters tends to objectify the experience. Recommended, but more as a study than as theatre per se.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
 No accounting for taste
I just attended a performance of this play, and I have to say, I really disagree with the other reviews. It may not read well, but it's incredible on stage. The way Beane builds up the language, and takes all the truths of Act One and inverts them in act two. It's a smart, funny and exhilarating.
 Painful....
While Douglas Carter Beane has written some very funny plays, this is not one of them. This is truly one of the worst comedies I've ever seen on a major stage.
 Skip It
Short Synopis - Evan Wyler is a writer who, after having his debut novel just published, is branded a 'hot' new talent. Soon he is descended upon by Alexa Vere de Vere, a social goddess who is seemingly fabulously wealthy and knows everyone in the world of the rich and famous. By the end of the first act however, Alexa has swindled Evan out of a large chunk of money and taken off. Act two deals with Evan trying to track down Alexa and take his revenge on her - whatever that may be.
What we have here is a deeply flawed work, and on top of that, it's a deeply flawed work that isn't even very fun. For a play that bills itself as a comedy, not being fun is...well...ouch.
There are two main problems - 1) The characters and 2) The story. For a play, this is a deathblow.
The characters...well, they're pretty boring. Yep, pretty boring people.
We'll start with Evan Wyler, our hero(?). Evan the writer is not once, not ONE time in the entire script, an interesting character. The only thing that seems to define him is the fact that there is nothing to define him by. He doesn't really seem to want anything too badly, he doesn't seem to care about anything too badly, and therefore nothing he does seems to have any deep rationale behind it. He just sort of drifts from one scene to another, loosely tethered by the other characters. For being one of the two leads in the show, it is absolutely surprising how little of a mark he makes. After reading the piece, one will ask themselves what made Evan what he was. He's gay. Does that matter in the story? Nope. He's a writer. Is that important in the script. Not after the first four pages. The character has no passion. The character dies before anyone has a chance to bring him to life.
Our other main character is Alexa Vere de Vere. She has a whole different set of problems as a character than Evan does. She doesn't seem to be void of any sort of passion or excitement as Evan does. The problem is, simply, the girl talks too much. She talks and talks and talks without saying anything at all. Sure, the argument can be made, "Of course she talks too much and never says anything! That's the whole point! Douglas Carter Beane is lampooning that whole caste of people, those in the 'biz', the 'movers and shakers' who talk talk talk because they are trying to make nothing into something, and everybody listens until nothing actually DOES become something!" Okay, sure, I get that. I get that and that's a valid point. But I get this point by Alexa's first scene, Scene TWO. What does that mean happens when the point keeps getting hammered in during the other fifteen scenes? It means it gets VERY old, very quickly. Beane doesn't help matters by presenting Alexa as a character who never really contains any sort of dynamic change over the course of the play.
The whole middle of the play lags (from about page 25-50. The script is about 70 pages long, so this is a LARGE chunk of time). It picks up a bit when we learn more about Alexa's backstory and the creation of her persona and transformation from Pennsylvania poor-girl, to NYC glitz-goddess, but it's not nearly enough to save interest in the piece by that point.
The play also ends on a weirdly self-congratulatory note, with Beane conversing about the importance and intelligence of writers. It's wildly out of place, especially when he has constructed a large portion of the play to be a comedic 'mystery' of sorts, focusing on if Evan will ever get revenge on Alexa for bilking him and others like him out of their money.
All in all, this play is definitely skippable. There are a few clever moments, but you won't be missing a thing. You'll be surprised by how little you laugh while reading this comedy. Hell, you'll be surprised by how little you THINK of MAYBE laughing.
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