Review: off
NoHo Studios, 5215 Lankershim Bl., NoHo, 213-969-2445
by Jeff Nelson
Maybe it’s the change in the weather, or maybe we’ve been spending a little too much time reading back issues of The New Yorker, but lately we’ve been daydreaming frequently about New York: that glittering metropolis of the east—the towering buildings, the sweltering subway, the rowboats in the Park, the rats that scamper from the garbage pile as we walk home from a club at four in the morning. But most of all, we’ve been dreaming of the theatre.
Fortunately for us, this thirst for the gritty, hard hitting theatre of the Big Apple was satisfied recently right here in NoHo. The arrival of Michael Kearns’ latest play, off, at the newly opened NoHo Studios, proves that we don’t have to fly across country to enjoy first-rate theatre or an afternoon of provocative entertainment. Make no mistake, this is the finest production currently playing in NoHo, and a must-see for those interested in theatre on the cutting edge.
Presented by Artists Confronting AIDS, off is the first play in the “Theatre at Three” series, a series of Sunday afternoon performances which explore issues surrounding HIV infection and AIDS. According to Colin Martin, who is producing the series, the new theatre company “is filling a void in the San Fernando Valley. There seems to be less theatrical activity on this side of the hill which depicts gay-lesbian issues and HIV/AIDS issues. Theatre has the potential to educate and perhaps heal. And Artists Confronting AIDS welcomes the participation of artists who are personally fighting the disease.”
The structure of off is simple—six monologues performed by six characters who have one terrible thing in common: each has killed someone. This is not a pretty play. On the contrary, it infuriates, provokes, and offends. And these are not pretty people—they yell and accuse and assault. They are disaffected and disenfranchised, abandoned by a culture that recoils in horror from the unsanitized and antagonistic.
The performances in off are in your face and over the top. These are not gay assimilationists, pleading for acceptance, nor are they gay victims, crying for sympathy. Rather, these characters are steeped in the queer-politic of the “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” variety. They demand to be taken at face value, and obstinately refuse to conform or submit. That is their strength, and that is their dignity.
The three actors who make up the cast are uniformly superb. Rodney Hargrove is marvelous as Cissy Stuff, a sassy transvestite who killed a skinhead in self-defense. Cissy is by turns nelly queen and luminous creature of the night, careening madly from arch humor to poignant grandeur. Jeffrey Paul Whitman is darkly perverse in his portrayal of a Vietnam vet turned serial killer, one of the more disquieting portraits of the evening. In a second monologue, he is perfectly warped as a hard-core I Love Lucy fan who enacts Lucy and Ethel’s double suicide. The best parts of the show, however, are the tour de force performances by Gil Ferrales. As Bud, the boy-toy of a kinky and shallow Hollywood big-shot, he is good, but it is his Carmen, the Hispanic mother of a dying AIDS patient, that really steals the show. This is an award-winning performance, controlled and delicate, hushed and forceful. Ferrales imbues Carmen with honor and decency, and flawlessly traces her progress down a heart-wrenching ethical path. This performance is not to be missed.
off is directed with distinction by Colin Martin, whose careful attention to detail makes all the difference. Lighting and sound design are perfectly handled by Marc Saccomano.♦