Triangle’s ‘Aisle Be Damned’ shows it’s the fun that matters, not the point

Editor’s note: This is the third year of the Editor-in-Chief’s review of the Triangle show, a recently revived tradition with little to no trace of its prior existence. This review is not entirely satirical and sadly not at all fictional, though it does discuss fiction. But nonetheless, it is definitely not serious.

You graduate from college and get a job as a software engineer. You move to Bushwick, get a dog, and start canvassing for Zohran Mamdani. You get really into public radio, The New York Times, and all the other superficial trappings of yuppie life. But despite the fact that your job pays an average of $184,000 a year, you still feel lonely and poor, in the New York City sense.

Sound familiar? This is the plight of Will Chung (an ever-smiling Radon Belarmino ’26), one of the leads of Triangle’s “Aisle Be Damned.” Will, however, is lucky. He is about to marry the girl of his dreams: Carrie (a superbly talented Ella Williams ’29), whom he literally bumps into on the street — a serendipitous collision, if you will. But before they can tie the knot, Carrie’s impressively wealthy, very conservative family — tipped off by Rudy Giuliani — intervenes to halt the marriage. Now, our poor lovebirds will have to endure the chore of a lavish wedding, paid for by people who are immediately unimpressed with Carrie’s choice of fiancé.

“Aisle Be Damned” is much stronger than recent Triangle shows, thanks to a deep bench of talent and some truly killer jokes. Unfortunately, the main characters are not that interesting; it’s difficult to make sense of the choices they make, and the sparse background details tend to go for immediate laughs rather than depth. But perhaps this is beside the point: this is the Triangle Club we’re talking about, and the cast, crew, and pit maintain an electric energy for a real fun time.

Carrie’s crazy family is where Triangle’s writers shine the most. There’s Carrie’s mother, Summer, a plastic surgery control freak played with effective terror by Kavya Bhat ’27. Jack Musser ’27 stuns in drag as Carrie’s grandmother (grandmère) Margie, who always seems to be within arm’s reach of her snuffbox.

Almost immediately, Summer begins plotting to undermine Will. Her solution is Felipe (a swaggering George Tidmore ’26), a crown prince of a not-to-be-disclosed European nation who tangoes into the rehearsal dinner. Will sweats, but this is quickly overshadowed by an even bigger development: Margie has kicked the bucket at the ripe old age of 105, and, Knives Out-style, turned over her $87 billion fortune to Will.

The show’s second act takes some time to get back to this main thread, although the individual scenes are compelling enough that you don’t notice it. Wedding planner Spencer (a scene-stealing Spencer Fitzgerald ’29) could crash out or execute a perfect pirouette at any moment. Agnes, a clinically anxious 14-year-old, is played with perfect muttering and bookishness by Cynthia Jacobson ’26. Courtney Candy (a giddy Sophia Vernon ’27) is Carrie’s maid of honor and ostensibly her best friend, although her grinning drug use is hard to square with Williams’ buttoned-up leading lady.

After an assortment of these ancillary character beats, we’re finally at the wedding, rudely interrupted by a slow-building penguin kickline. But Carrie this time has cold feet, and she runs out of the ceremony. After a talking-to from Margie, she finally decides she’s going to stand up to her controlling mother, and that involves … taking a break from Will?

It doesn’t matter in the moment because the scene is really funny, with Musser’s Margie returning from the dead to throw out line after line — “Like that time I told Andy Warhol, ‘Soup cans, and a lot of them.’” Also, it extra doesn’t matter because Will and Carrie end up getting married three years later anyway.

The show’s biggest sin is its waste of acting talent. Williams, whose last stage appearance was on London’s West End, has a magnetic stage presence, but was given little to work with. Carrie, despite ostensibly being one of the leads, might be the flattest character of the show. Her headline number, “Have My Cake,” tells us that she went to Smith, she loves Will, and is terrified of disappointing her family — not exactly groundbreaking. Summer is also a missed opportunity. Bhat plays her with a deliciously malicious edge, but never gets a chance at full-blown villainy or even her own song.

There are other, smaller missteps. The choreography is fairly static and relies on bland hand gestures (although excellent props, including Carrie’s cakes, make this less noticeable). The score is just like that of most other musicals — especially other Triangle shows — which is to say campy and dull. The music in Felipe’s opening number, “A Million Bucks,” was especially disappointing given Tidmore’s flouncy yet elegant presence, opting for a hokey bastardization of Carmen when Bizet’s original would have done just fine.

But why bother grousing? The show is a great time. Triangle gets to show off its dancing talent in “Shim Sham Shimmy,” which is fabulous in both sight and sound. The Wiggles-inspired “Fellas,” a four-person, one-guitar music group, provide real comedic relief without feeling cringe. The costumes are also a highlight, decking out Margie in Cruella de Vil from head to toe, Felipe in flamenco frills, and Courtney in perfectly clashing neons.

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Belarmino’s cheerful performance manages to obscure the fact that Will is deeply lonely. Will has only one friend, Benji (a vest-clad Aayushman Kher ’27), who’s just as nerdy as he is. It’s not quite clear why he and Carrie like each other, beyond a saccharine “Care Bear” or seven. His family is long-gone in witness protection. He’s insecure enough to repeat the mistakes of the last two Triangle show protagonists and throw away his perfectly good life for (empty) external validation.

Is Gen Z doomed to be like Will? We’re broke and lonely, plenty of us end up living in Bushwick, and we keep striving for things — money and marriage — that are ultimately constructs. Plus the “Service of Humanity.” Perhaps we are (although I would kill to have Will’s lucrative DuckDuckGo salary). But it doesn’t matter. While meaning is nice, as “Aisle Be Damned” shows, it’s not necessary to have a good time.

Miriam Waldvogel previously operated the sound board in Stockton Civic Theatre’s 2019 production of “Matilda.” She can be reached at eic[at]dailyprincetonian.com.