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Coach Coach Goes to Camp Camp

Does Bailey Williams’s wellness-industry satire self-actualize?

Here, in a rental property stuffed with flowered, moldering upholstery, Patti is joined by fellow coaches Ann (Purva Bedi), Cornelia (Becca Lish), and Velma (Susannah Millonzi) — each with her own specialization and her own covetous yearning for Dr. Martin’s favor. The fact that the character’s name echoes not the striver but the superstar from Joseph Mankiewicz’s film adds a layer of Jungian ambiguity: If Margo, who’s been with Dr. Martin from the beginning, knows every gesture her mistress will make, every word she’ll speak before it’s spoken, then who is the creator and who the creature? There’s a history between the morbid Velma and the buttoned-up Ann (whose all-pink Working Girl silhouette screams Real-Estate Barbie and who keeps reminding everyone that she’s recently married “to a man!”), and every time Millonzi and Bedi are left alone together, the play’s parodic formula gains density and chemistry without losing its humor.

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