<b>BRILLIANT WORKS OF ART</b> Alleyway Cabaret/Bellissima Productions SpeakupWNY | Buffalo NY and Buffalo News

Through February 15
BRILLIANT WORKS OF ART Alleyway Cabaret/Bellissima Productions

By Augustine Warner

Ah, decisions.
Everyone is faced with making some.
That’s where the problem occurs, since some of those decisions are good and some aren’t.
Abby Gates (Zoe Coñez) is a broke law student who gets desperate, desperate to the point she sees prostitution as a workable solution.
It’s not only a bad solution in Donna Hoke’s “Brilliant Works of Art,” but it leads to more decisions to be resolved.
In what appears to be her first paid assignation, Abby meets financial mover and shaker Grant Parrish (Greg Howze).
Getting involved with him is a worse decision than seeing prostitution as a way to deal with her money problems.
Now, he is honest with her about his marriage and children and his refusal to move on from them to another woman (or two).
Parrish helps her meet her tuition and other financial obligations and even offers her a beautiful high-rise apartment bed near his office, along with her learning the fine points of being among the rich and famous, like picking wines.
That would mean her moving out of the apartment she shares with three other students, including a guy she’s hot for, artist James Gould (Johnny Barden).
Then James makes the move she really wants, with a kiss, and she’s dealing with two men in her beds, like Grant with a wife and a stereotyped starving student mistress.
Meanwhile, we have Grant knowing about James while James doesn’t know about Grant.
There is this background sense throughout this play in the Alleyway Cabaret that Grant has Abby under some sort of surveillance, keeping ahead on what she is doing.
Because Grant has so much money, he can throw it into splitting James from Abby by promoting his artistic career.
I didn’t like much of James’ art, although the “TikTok Confessor” works, with busts covered by 3/5 cards and other surfaces of people writing to an ad posted by James.
He’s seeking lists of things they have done they aren’t proud of.
They range from cheating on a partner to theft.
He does well selling the artworks.
Eventually, the two men find out about each other and Abby can’t have it both ways, although the ending of the play suggests she wants to keep trying, particularly with James in New York City doing art.
This is the first production of “Brilliant,” so it might change in the future, as Hoke watches from the audience, as she did on Opening Night.
Director Sabrina Kahwaty has 2/3 of a strong cast, with Abby the weak spot and Howze the strong point.
This is a minimum set show because the Cabaret stage is small, leaving what’s on display as furniture which can be quickly switched between use as a bed and as a couple of chairs.
As a note, don’t sit too close to the stage because some of show lighting is on the back of the performance space and in the eyes of the people in the front row.
This is a play about leverage.
Because he has money, Grant can lever impoverished Abby into doing what he wants, basically hopping into bed with him whenever he wants.
With the not-far-away prospect of a law degree, Abby submits, while hanging with James at every opportunity.
People have decisions to make, you just hope you never have to face Abby’s in “Brilliant Works of Art.”