BONDING WITH BOND - review

By Scott Barbarino

BONDING WITH BOND

I wasn't sure what to expect when I went down to the Laurie Beechman Theatre to catch the last performance of Phil Geoffrey Bond's one-man show, My Roaring Twenties: How I Learned to Drink Fast, but I was intrigued by the flyer and press release. Given Phil's penchant for innovative programming for the cabaret stage, interactive movie nights, spoken word, etc., I knew it would be different. I braved the elements, cats and dogs as I left home -- and boy, am I glad I did. What I saw was quite simply a most wonderful and brilliant piece of theater. Some of the best, in fact, that I've ever seen.

Now, I must admit being a simple boy from Brooklyn; though I've known Phil for years and have watched his career closely, we've only ever really been acquaintances because, frankly, he scared me. He always appeared so prim and proper with a bit of self-assured arrogance thrown in…. and after all, he had been a publicist. Over the years, I saw flashes of his deadpan style of humor and thought to myself, he is human after all, even though he was a publicist. Well, folks I'm here to tell ya Mr. Bond is very human. The story he tells, the self-effacing way he tells it, and the revelations about himself and --- through that revealing the light he shines on the human condition, at least that condition of humans here in New York involved in the entertainment business --- is so completely enlightening, endearing and thoroughly entertaining, that I'd like to do something I in my life have very rarely done: I'd like to see a show again.

I do not want to give much away except to tell you that Phil comes from humble beginnings where Applebee’s was known as fine dining, that he survived acclimating to the big city like most of us with fake pretension, that he's loved as well as suffered from his close proximity to celebrity, and that he survived "Mousewitz" as well as survived (but was changed like most of us) after 9/11. I'd like to have asked him if there is anything he'd have liked to have changed or done differently in his life, but then it wouldn't have been his life by which I was so entertained. So, Phil, "scurry forth", with the unique perspective you have on life I look forward to hearing about your next ten years and the installment after that, and the installment after that. And, Phil, if you're reading this please tell me that those pictures of the guy wearing the gas mask and harness that Joan Rivers found on the owner’s desk during her downtown appearance weren't of who I think they were. Yuck!!

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