Hop Fro is a delicious beer. Very delicious. A quick, seasonal from Fat Heads brewery; and a damn fine brewery it is. It makes delicious sandwiches. And delicious beer. And you know what else is delicious? Snake Oil at Ohio City Theatre Project. Very delicious. I think if you re-read this and think in your mind of Will Ferrell acting the part of George W, it works. It’s in the cadence.

Snake Oil is awesome. It was good fun. Mostly clean fun. Okay, not really. Arwen Mitchell’s piece is a Brechtian delight: overthetop costuming, outrageous plot, songs, placards, audience intimidation, with archetypal characters dashing about. And Sade Wolfkitten (Yay!!) of convergence fame stroking the accordion: adding the ooompah to the frivolity. The play has the subdued spirit of Wizbang in it’s vaudevillian shorts, but the plot is as risqué as any ca. 2015 bit of reality tv naughtiness. All of which is captivatingly captured by Kilbride (Amy Schwabauer), who dances and strides around the countryside (Canopy Collective) with a pair of torpedoes blazing across her bow. Apologies for slipping into pirate speak, of a sort. Schwabauer is a fiery streak of silk energy in a Moulin Rouge dress: kicking, dancing, and fighting her way across the landscape. Stuart Hoffman steals the show, seriously, in a bit of acting that absolutely should not be missed. Hoffman shows a strong mastery of facial expression, farcical energy, and crash characterization that carries some sections of the production. His devilish character (Dryeth) is the trickster at the crossroads and Hoffman wears all the masks. The devil has put his finger on poor Delacourt (Kyle Adam) who is only trying to sell his elixir of life, with the help of his sweet Kilbride. I’ve not seen Adam in anything before, but I see he’s in something coming up at Dobama. He does a great job of selling the huxter shtick: the song, the cadence, the energy, and the spontaneous oratory. He does a good drunk as well… in the play. I’ve no knowledge of how good a drunk he is (or isn’t!) elsewhere.

I’ll not give away the plot except to say that Kilbride and Delacourt claim themselves to be from Nice, France—which they pronounce like Midwesterners discussing the decision to bring Old Aunt Edna some flowers up in Eastern Star nursing facility earlier today. The emissaries from Nice are glad to meet their host country folk in a town they call “Best.” They sell their elixir, which turns out to be a liquid that induces somnolence in the “Johns” that Kilbride has made arrangements with. Once out, Kilbride robs the men blind inside their own houses, or offices, or whatever. A brilliant bit of New World grifting. In steps the menacing yet, strangely, happy-go-lucky journalist, Dryeth, who squeezes a story from our daring duo. Dryeth promises a sale, but instead delivers destruction, splitsville. A tale as old as the Moses testament and dangerous as God’s wrath. Angels and Insects, baby.

Sarah Greywitt directs and does excellent work using the space and no doubt the design aspects. She explains at the outset where the stage is (dashed lines of red tape in a discrete rectangle to the ‘front’ of the house). But she continues that the space will be broken. The actors will be out of the lines and about. She invites us, as audience, to move around too. Change perspective. (But don’t interfere with the actors.) The life of the wandering Snake Oil salesman is invoked, the set is excellent with highlights that create an impression, a reference to the whole. Greywitt keeps the play rolling and balances the energy of the actors and the energy of the script.

I’m not telling how the story ends. But see it. Experience it. Have fun. Laugh, cry, rejoice. Saw Peter Roth there, and his lovely wife Olivia. A wonderful eve of thee in cle. Buy some cool shit from Canopy Collective, too.

convergence-continuum

Saw The Boys in the Band last Friday at convergence and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Overview

The play, written by [amazon_link id=”1593501463″ target=”_blank” ]Mart Crowley[/amazon_link], first appeared in 1968 and in some ways you can tell that it is dated–and not in the more obvious aspects–set, exposition, etc., but in the real concerns confronting the characters. This is not to say that it is not very powerful: it is. And powerful in ways you might not expect. Although the issue of homosexuality concerning the men might not be as biting today as it was once, the other fears and concerns that the men express certainly resonate: aging and the heart rending realization that your best years are not only behind you, but lost forever and only memories; finding meaning and value in one’s life, accepting who you are and learning to move forward in the best possible way. For these characters, though, in 1968, there was piled on top of these more “common” concerns, the very real stigma and abuse associated with being homosexual.

Description

[amazon_link id=”B001CQONPE” target=”_blank” ]The Boys in the Band[/amazon_link], in essence, is about a group of gay men coming together to throw a birthday party. As the party goes along, and the men drink more and more, it becomes apparent that the life-long battle with the social stigma that has been attached to their sexual orientation has brutalized many of the men’s self image and, coupled with the issues I mentioned above, leads to scathing and terrible personal attacks as self-hatred and loathing is projected (by some men) and returned, and volleyed around like a tennis ball. It is important, I think, to note that the men are each representative of a certain type and not all of the men hates himself.

The play gets off to a slow start at the apartment of the host, Michael, (Curt Arnold) who is getting dressed and preparing the apartment for the party. His lover, Donald, (Zac Hudak) arrives (he’s a librarian) and through a rather lengthy stretch of exposition we receive the information that will drive most of the rest of the play: the disillusion that Donald and Michael have with the gay scene, the fact that each is seeing a shrink, that Michael has always had a difficult time with this parents, his identity, and has recently stopped smoking and drinking. The final piece of the expositional puzzle is a telephone call to Michael from Alan (Jim Jarrell) an old college chum (conceited, supercilious, pretentious) who is also straight–perhaps. Alan is drunkenly weeping into the phone and has something to tell Michael; he will only tell Michael in person, and insists on coming over to Michael’s apartment. One-by-one the guests arrive and the play really picks up steam and energy: Emory (Clyde Simon) is the quintessential fairy who lightly floats about making snarky, often lascivious, comments; Bernard (Bobby Williams) the only black gay man in the group; Larry (Scott Zolkowski), a truly lascivious gay man who cannot abide monogamy, much to the chagrin of his lover Hank (Dan Kilbane) the token “married” gay man in the group; a gay prostitute/midnight cowboy (Benjamin Gregg); and finally, there is Harold (Jonathan Wilhelm) in whose honor the party is being thrown.

With the party in full gear the drunkenness and back-talking begins. All is well until Alan shows up forcing Michael to request that the gay men all behave and pretend to be what they are not, culminating at the end of act one with Alan punching Emory for one-too-many snide comments and Michael falling off the wagon and chugging vodka or scotch from a carafe.

The second act builds on the first with drunken boisterousness rising and rising alongside the anger and self-loathing of Michael who now takes careful target at virtually everyone in the room–with only Harold, the star party guest, showing the capacity to match Michael’s sparring.

Conclusion

I’ll not bore everyone with a book report of the play, but suffice it to say the play becomes very raw and dangerous at this point, exposing what I can only imagine to be the circa 1960s/70s psychological damage that was done by the constant degradation of these men by the societal and cultural attitudes toward who they in their very being were. Despite the lightness, the airs, the joking; one can see that the damage and relentlessness of it on the psyche and health of these men was severe and Crowley’s play does an excellent job of laying bare this reality.

Production Notes

Douglas Tyson-Rand does a very good job directing and keeping the pace of this play up and driving constantly forward; Cory Molnar designed a great circa-1960s set for the play that, as always, is comfy cozy in the close-up world of The Liminis theater space.

If you haven’t seen this play, do yourself a favor and check it out. It runs through Saturday, October 29th at convergence.