Every comedy needs a chaotic breakout character: not necessarily the lead, but a force of nature who crashes through the action and reshapes every scene in their image. “Animal House” had an almost feral John Belushi as Bluto; “The Hangover” had Zach Galifianakis’s bearded, bewildered groomsman Alan.
And “The Last Day of Retrograde,” available now on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+, has Joshie, played by 32-year-old Marinwood native Kaya Mey. Mey isn’t the only Marin talent involved in the film. Producer Haley Baldwin grew up in Novato, and co-star Sidney Pippin is a Marin native and alum of Marin Shakes and Marin Theatre.
The film is set in Palo Alto amid a circle of friends whose interactions are all charged with their low-level lust for each other; it’s a rom-com of seemingly endless permutations. It indeed takes place on the last day of that most ignominious season of the planets, and like Ingmar Bergman’s “Smiles of a Summer Night” or Norman Jewison’s “Moonstruck,” it uses the movements of the spheres as an explanation for why everyone’s acting so strangely.
Mey was initially attracted to the casting call because of its focus on queer characters.
“I responded with, ‘Well, can I play one of the characters written for a male?’” says Mey, who identifies as nonbinary. “I did the audition and the director said I could play any of the characters, and so I chose Joshie.”
Joshie is a living cartoon character, all eye rolls and finger guns, and Mey embodies the character so completely that it was a bit surprising to pick up the phone for our interview and not hear Joshie’s heightened, slangy speech.
“I feel like Joshie is totally in me,” Mey says. “But I don’t always present as Joshie, because there’s more ease in society from presenting more femme.”
The choice of a male role has poetic resonance for Mey. When they first started acting in middle school, the first monologue they were asked to deliver was Hamlet’s famous “Now I am alone” soliloquy. Though the female roles in Shakespeare’s plays were played by men in his day, Mey’s teachers had a hard time accepting a femme-presenting nonbinary person in the role of the melancholy Dane.
“I was told by many of my teachers that I would never get to actually play Hamlet because of my biology,” Mey says. “So the fact that I got to play Joshie was really special to me.”
Mey studied commedia dell’arte, an Italian comedic form dating back to the 16th century, at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake. Mey wrote an entire commedia dell’arte sequence for the film, which the characters perform as part of an application residency and which is charged with the characters’ personal grievances with one another.
Though Mey’s commedia performance in the film likely involves a bit more hip-thrusting than is the norm for this venerable art, they say it’s not that much of an exaggeration.
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“Commedia dell’arte is very much about the base desires,” Mey says. “It’s all slapstick, it’s sex and falling and hitting each other.”
Commedia dell’arte is based on archetypes, each of whom embodies a certain personality trait or aspect of society. Though Mey personally sympathizes with Columbina, a down-to-earth female stock character, Mey associates Joshie with Il Capitano, the epitome of masculine bluster, whose bragging the other characters see through easily.
“I think Joshie likes to present as very outgoing and capable but definitely stumbles over themselves a lot,” Mey says. “That dynamic is definitely a Joshie thing.”
Acting isn’t Mey’s only pursuit. They’re also an experienced massage therapist, and they recently opened Haven, a wellness center in San Anselmo, whose press materials claim Mey brings “the same dedication to their clients as they do to their art.”
“I’ve been very intentional with things that are in alignment with my values, whether that’s creating art or making a wellness center,” Mey says. “I’m privileged in the fact that I get to create art that has a narrative that ultimately brings catharsis or helps people feel seen.”
