A Lad, Two Lasses and a Lasso

WONDER WEDNESDAY

Marin Theatre Company’s Lasso of Truth seems like it was pretty much made for me. It’s a play about the creator of Wonder Woman (and his wife and their lover), as well as the cultural legacy of America’s favorite superheroine. And yeah, I’m pretty much in the bag for that one from the start. But at the same time I’m a pretty tough room, because I know things about Wonder Woman, to put it mildly.  I’d pretty much have to, writing about her past adventures every week.

Lauren English and John Riedlinger in Lasso of Truth. Photo by Kevin Berne.

My review is up in the Marin Independent Journal, and you should totally read that. But here are some geeky quibbles that were a little too specific for the review:

The Girl talks about her sense of betrayal with season 2 of Wonder Woman, where all of a sudden Wonder Woman kept having to be rescued by Steve Trevor more than vice versa. What the hell happened between seasons 1 and 2, she asks? You mean besides the complete change of setting from the 1940s to the 1970s, and the fact that this wasn’t even the same Steve Trevor character but his son, although played by the same actor, and wasn’t even a romantic interest anymore because that would be kind of creepy? Not the point, I know, but pretty much everything changed between seasons 1 and 2.

I’m sure this was just an opening-night flubbed line, but when Lauren English’s character the Girl tried to establish her comic-book geek cred to a snooty comic store owner, she said that she knows that “the second appearance of Wonder Woman was in Sensation Comics #2.” It was Sensation Comics #1!  And there’s no way that the comic book guy she was talking to would have let that slide.

Speaking of Comic Book Guy, the play was set in the 1990s, and he wears a “Han Shot First” T-shirt. The Special Edition rerelease of Star Wars was in 1997, featuring the notorious edit making it look like Greedo shot first, so I guess a T-shirt might have been possible if this was at the very end of the ’90s, but I don’t know how early it really became a slogan. But that pales in comparison to the running gag in that storyline about being poisoned with polonium-210 like Alexander Litvinenko, which didn’t even happen until 2006.

In the ways that count, though, Carson Kreitzer’s play really gets what Wonder Woman’s about, and on that level (and a number of other levels too) I quite enjoyed it. More on that in the review below.

Theater review: MTC’s tangled ‘Lasso’ ropes you in

And in case you missed it, my earlier feature:

Wonder Woman takes the stage at Marin Theatre Company

I’ll be taking part in a panel discussion on the legacy of Wonder Woman after the 2pm matinee of Lasso this Saturday, March 1, alongside comic creator and women-in-comics historian Trina Robbins and Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, director of the documentary Wonder Women: The Untold Story of American Superheroines. Come check us out, if you’re so inclined!

Lasso of Truth
Through March 16
Marin Theatre Company
397 Miller Avenue
Mill Valley, CA
www.marintheatre.org