Regina’s Fiancé’s Wedding Fiasco

We broke out Fiasco by Jason Morningstar tonight and stepped into the wondrous world of Regina’s Wedding to see how, or if, the bride finally takes her vows. Our cast includes Stephanie, an anarchist 90s riot grrrl turned petty criminal who dumped her then-boyfriend Ted when she felt he wasn’t committed enough to the cause but is now working with Brian Dobbs, a tech bro with massive hacking skillz. Brian is helping her steal the files for printing hundreds from the Philly mint while secretly trying to win back his high school sweetheart, Regina. Regina dreams of becoming a tap-dancing star and hopes her Daddy or Daddy’s money can get her onto Margaret Wakefield’s variety program to showcase her talent. In the meantime, she is about to marry George-Alan not knowing that he dresses in drag to host the very show she admires so much. Margaret Wakefield’s biggest fan is George-Alan’s friend, Grills, whose dedicated his life and built a quasi-religious following around Margaret Wakefield and her show. He also harbors a very intense resentment of the biological father he didn’t until recently know, the officiant and Catholic priest, Father Ted. Ted once played in Stephanie’s punk band but when God punished him for cheating on her by sending her away, he decided he had to go straight and joined the priesthood to bring others back into the fold.

Our story starts with Father Ted meeting with George-Alan and Regina to discuss the ladies shoes that she has found in his closet. Father Ted is convinced by the size of the shoes that George-Alan has purchased them for when Regina becomes pregnant and her feet swell, a certain sign of his immense love for her. Earlier in the week, Regina and George-Alan meet Brian and Stephanie at the Four Seasons and Regina reveals her great love of horses but can’t fit the other couple into the wedding plans. On the morning of the wedding, Grills meets Regina in the hotel coffee shop and they discuss their mutual love of Margaret Wakefield. He points out how few friends she seems to have besides her beloved horses. Afterward, Grills walks into the business center where he interrupts Stephanie and Brian using the hotel computer to complete their virtual heist. To keep him occupied and save the caper, Stephanie accompanies Grills to his room to fix the cable, but they run into Father Ted in the elevator. He is amazed to see Stephanie after so many years but even more discombobulated by Grills’ animosity. She plays the two off each other then fixes the cable, which just needed to be plugged back into the wall. Father Ted recalls how earlier he had discovered the happy couple trying to drink the sacramental wine to retrieve George-Alan’s cufflinks. Their ignorance of basic Christian and Catholic tenets so appalled the circumspect priest that he was hardly prepared for the emotional scene in Grills’ room.

After the turn introduces “secrets are revealed” and the “truth will out”, Regina runs into Brian after he’s finished in the business center and the two decide to go horseback riding together that morning. Afterward, Grills convinces Brian that he shouldn’t miss the opportunity during the ceremony to speak his piece and declare his undying love for Regina, which has persisted since they had pledged to stay virgins together until marriage back in 10th grade. Before the ceremony, George-Alan goes to confess to Father Ted that the enormous shoes they’d found earlier weren’t for Regina’s pregnancy but were his own, from when he performs as Margaret Wakefield. Ted asks for a number of prayers and extracts a promise from George-Alan to tell Regina the truth as his acts of contrition. During the ceremony, Father Ted has lost his grip on sobriety, having started drinking after his morning encounter with Grills and Stephanie. First Brian interrupts to declare his love for Regina, but before anyone can react, Father Ted confesses his to being Grills’ father, highlighting his compound failure as a father, an anarchist, and as a man of the cloth. Then George-Alan finally reveals to Regina his dual-life as Margaret Wakefield, and the ceremony is never completed, despite Brian’s call for dual weddings between himself and Regina, and Grills and Margaret. After the ceremony, the police arrive with lots of information from the hotel’s computer and security systems, and although Stephanie hides the thumbdrive with the stolen goods inside the wedding cake before sneaking away, Brian is arrested and Regina gives the police a piece of cake to take with them, the very piece with the hidden evidence.

In the Epilogue, we learn each of their fates. Grills is eventually arrested for fraud around the cult that he forms to honor Margaret Wakefield. Given how impossible it is to be defrocked in the Catholic Church, Father Ted remains a priest but becomes the poster boy for the unit at his seminary on “What not to do when tending your flock.” Although Stephanie initially gets away, she is eventually arrested when visiting Brian’s trial and joins him in prison. Brian’s term ends up much longer than hers when it’s proven he’s guilty of numerous other, unrelated cyber-crimes. Regina refuses to answer his calls from prison, but having rejected him after the wedding fell apart, she decides that she’ll have to go crawling back to George-Alan to advance her dreams of tap-dancing. Margaret Wakefield has such a large following the she can begin again with a whole new life and a whole new show.