(Above: Tracey Gilbert, R. Jane Casserly, Phillip Taratula in Pulling Teeth; Joe Curnutte, James Paul Ireland, Carter Jackson in Yes Yes Yes; David Johnston, Curnutte in Beauty.)I traveled Thursday night to Tribeca to see the newest offering by Blue Coyote Theater Group. Happy Endings is a smooshed-together evening of short plays by nine playwrights all dealing with whores and whoring. The results range from devastating to delightful. Who knew what the Tooth Fairy had to do to raise all that cash?
Director Gary Shrader (one of four) and actor Joe Curnutte have devised a rather ingenious throughline that gives the piece an arch and an ample helping of heart. Curnutte appears three times as the same character, but in each subsequent piece filled out and embellished. In the opening Beauty (playwright Blair Fell) he is the non-speaking object of lust: a shirtless, talent-free go-go boy. Later, in AIDS Reveal (Stan Richardson), he gains voice, attitude, and a boyfriend who may just have poisoned him. In Yes Yes Yes (David Johnston), the evening’s closer, he becomes a man who surprises and excites. That’s a neat, um, trick.
A bit over a year ago BCTG did The Standards of Decency Project, a similar multi-playwright commission intended to push audience buttons. It didn’t but it was cute. They attain their goal much more effectively with Happy Endings.
The shocks of the night (there are two) both happen in AIDS Reveal. One is delivered with eerie rationale by Robert Buckwalter. Playing a trapped, married man in rural America whose boytoy has HIV, he ruminates on how he might deal with his wife and newborn child. I was chilled and sickened and horrified. The other? Nudity seldom shocks. But in the right context it can be very powerful. In the same piece, a businessman played by Khris Lewin has just been informed on the phone that the escort who has barebacked him the night before has HIV. Lewin rises from a desk, fully clothed but with his fly open and his crotch completely exposed. The image has a vulnerability that really startles.
As with all such multi-playwright evenings, the pieces aren’t equally effective. Of the plays, the most disturbing is Peep Show (Christine Whitley), the worthiest of expansion AIDS Reveal, the best Yes Yes Yes.
The rest? Tracey Gilbert continues her campaign to become my favorite actress. This woman is one of the most versatile talents going. I remember her feisty defense attorney in Busted Jesus Comix. The horrified best friend in Paradise. The mourning daughter in Funeral Home in Brooklyn. The girl can act. I mean like Holly Hunter can act. She appears twice in Happy Endings, once heartbreakingly and once hilariously. I say no more. Except that my favorite moment of the night is “You’re drunk”… Brian Fuqua, a wonderful actor (Saturday With Martin, Bush Carol) camps it in his own material, a playwriting debut, for The Guest. Even playing fey and competing with naked, humpy boys, Fuqua is the sexiest thing goin’ all night. And the dude can write! How did this upstart, first-timing bastard do it so well? He must be killed.
Other things I liked? Phillip Taratula playing two hilariously diverse characters… the manic horniness of Matthew Trumbull (I love actors who kick the ceiling off over-the-top)... a hare-pulling knock-down drag-out fist fight… Jane Casserly in a role I wish I had played (there’s another dame can act).
And there is David.
Yeah, my ex both acts in one piece and wrote another. That’s a forthcoming blog.
So, well done, Coyotes! Hope it, um, makes ‘ya.
Director Gary Shrader (one of four) and actor Joe Curnutte have devised a rather ingenious throughline that gives the piece an arch and an ample helping of heart. Curnutte appears three times as the same character, but in each subsequent piece filled out and embellished. In the opening Beauty (playwright Blair Fell) he is the non-speaking object of lust: a shirtless, talent-free go-go boy. Later, in AIDS Reveal (Stan Richardson), he gains voice, attitude, and a boyfriend who may just have poisoned him. In Yes Yes Yes (David Johnston), the evening’s closer, he becomes a man who surprises and excites. That’s a neat, um, trick.
A bit over a year ago BCTG did The Standards of Decency Project, a similar multi-playwright commission intended to push audience buttons. It didn’t but it was cute. They attain their goal much more effectively with Happy Endings.
The shocks of the night (there are two) both happen in AIDS Reveal. One is delivered with eerie rationale by Robert Buckwalter. Playing a trapped, married man in rural America whose boytoy has HIV, he ruminates on how he might deal with his wife and newborn child. I was chilled and sickened and horrified. The other? Nudity seldom shocks. But in the right context it can be very powerful. In the same piece, a businessman played by Khris Lewin has just been informed on the phone that the escort who has barebacked him the night before has HIV. Lewin rises from a desk, fully clothed but with his fly open and his crotch completely exposed. The image has a vulnerability that really startles.
As with all such multi-playwright evenings, the pieces aren’t equally effective. Of the plays, the most disturbing is Peep Show (Christine Whitley), the worthiest of expansion AIDS Reveal, the best Yes Yes Yes.
The rest? Tracey Gilbert continues her campaign to become my favorite actress. This woman is one of the most versatile talents going. I remember her feisty defense attorney in Busted Jesus Comix. The horrified best friend in Paradise. The mourning daughter in Funeral Home in Brooklyn. The girl can act. I mean like Holly Hunter can act. She appears twice in Happy Endings, once heartbreakingly and once hilariously. I say no more. Except that my favorite moment of the night is “You’re drunk”… Brian Fuqua, a wonderful actor (Saturday With Martin, Bush Carol) camps it in his own material, a playwriting debut, for The Guest. Even playing fey and competing with naked, humpy boys, Fuqua is the sexiest thing goin’ all night. And the dude can write! How did this upstart, first-timing bastard do it so well? He must be killed.
Other things I liked? Phillip Taratula playing two hilariously diverse characters… the manic horniness of Matthew Trumbull (I love actors who kick the ceiling off over-the-top)... a hare-pulling knock-down drag-out fist fight… Jane Casserly in a role I wish I had played (there’s another dame can act).
And there is David.
Yeah, my ex both acts in one piece and wrote another. That’s a forthcoming blog.
So, well done, Coyotes! Hope it, um, makes ‘ya.
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