Arts & Events

Eye from the Aisle: Impact’s THE PLAY ABOUT THE NAKED GUY--“Jolly Good Fun” at La Val’s

By John A. McMullen II
Tuesday November 30, 2010 - 05:02:00 PM
Steven Satyricon and Jai Sahai
Chesire Isaacs
Steven Satyricon and Jai Sahai

When I acted in a theatre company down on 20th St. in NYC’s Chelsea district in the late 70’s, some twenty actors who all shared one dressing room would perform a bad rewrite of Candide or Bartleby the Scrivener for no pay. We sometimes lured our audience with a bottle of muscatel (“just don’t rattle the paper bag”).  

“The Integrity Players” in David Bell’s THE PLAY ABOUT THE NAKED GUY could be that company reduced to three players, whose sole funder is the mother of the actress. However, Mother’s single-minded goal is to break up the marriage of her daughter to the impoverished artistic director and get her back to Westport, Connecticut through any deviousness necessary. 

When Eddie Rossini who produces live male porn finds out the little company is going under and offers them a devilishly lucrative deal to produce a homoerotic take-off on Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ,” we’re off on two hours of Sacrilegious Hilarity, pitting Holy Theatre against Mammon in Leather Cutoffs.  

Directed by Evren Odcikin, the casting is pitch perfect. Like most good screwball comedies, it’s character driven with plot twists that give the actors an opportunity to show their exasperation, desperation, and exhilaration with a funny spin. Odcikin has the cast dancing through the scene changes to keep the energy streaming through the blackouts, and his blocking makes the bandbox stage seem ample. He sets a proper pace, and choreographs the bawdiness to keep it edgy and believable but well on this side of funny.  

The writing seems to be of those plays that you write just for fun when high on joy or whatever; then you find that what you’ve got is witty, pretty and gay, and you’ve got a little comic masterpiece. Or perhaps the playwright plotted it all along for the big bucks, because this could be one of those on-going little Off-off cult midnight offerings (“I’m thinking Lesbian Vampires from Sodom”) that plays for years. Comedy is harder to write than drama, and The Play about the Naked Guy is better comedy than most. Campy comedy is Impact Theatre’s calling card, though they mix it with excellent Shakespeare.  

 

Drag stripper and performance artist Steve Satyricon is type cast as Kit Swagger. His cut, buffed, and tattooed torso writhes, flexes, and cavorts about the stripper pole to audience cheers of both genders. He is almost too accurate in his inability to give a line reading in the inept manner of nearly every actor in porn. 

Jai Sahai plays Harold N. Shyamalan, a Yale drama grad nebbish of Indian extraction. Sahai plays him with a subtlety that captures humor and heart in every ungainly gesture. Harold is outed early on, and the play is as much about his growing into this new sexual identity as it is about saving the theatre and putting on the play. 

Brian McManus as theatrical purist, artistic director of the Integrity Players, and new dad-to-be is a combination of Kevin Kline with all his theatrical charm and Fish-Called-Wanda self-confident buffoonery and Conan O’Brien’s geeky awkwardness—a very funny, straight-man combo. 

The show starts with the last act of unknown and unattended classic Restoration play with Eliza Leoni playing a pregnant beggar woman; life imitates art and she’s really pregnant (in the play), and the company’s stark financial crisis is aggravated by the impending arrival. Ms. Leoni shines with radiant fecundity and bright eyes that reflect and augment every glimmer of light. One wonders if indeed she is enceinte. When her hubby calls her by her pet name, “Pretty,” we concur. She is believably the ingénue naïve from Westport Connecticut caught between a life of art and the reality of a child coming any day.  

John Ferreira is convincingly greedy and conniving in his characterization of sex impresario Eddie Rossini, but occasionally has difficulty keeping up with the hellzapoppin’ comic tempo. Eddie’s minions are played as a NYC twinkie duet by Adrian Anchondo and Timitio Artusio. They keep the background humor churning as this Heckle and Jeckle pair vogues, grinds, and flounces their way into our hearts through our funny bones. 

Monica Cappuccini is a shot of hot liquid energy in her award-worthy Mommy Dearest role; she classes up the plays with her timing and phrasing, and it’s a wonder that this talent works at this basement level rather than for the big bucks.  

But, Impact’s keen sense of humor and execution, regardless of venue, is worth double the admission. If you offend easily, skip this one, but if you’ve got a keen sense of satire and camp, the laughs per dollar can’t be beat. My gay British friend put it succinctly, “Jolly Good Fun!” 

The climax is a tad anticlimactic; perhaps the unveiling of the long awaited Monty in all its Fullness might have augmented that finale chord with a prosthetic homage to the final scene of Boogie Nights. 

Costumes by Miyuki Bierlein, particularly the appropriately fashionable ensembles for Mommie Richest, decorate the bare stage of rehearsal cubes and painted stone, and enhance each character. The sound design of Colin Trevor keeps the disco beat thumping, and Jax Steager’s simple set of revolving ball of colored lights, funky bar signs like “One Gay at a Time,” and rehearsal cubes keep it simple and make it fun.  

 

About La Val’s & Impact: I’m short, and I can touch the ceiling in the basement of La Val’s Pizza on Hearst alongside UCB in North Berkeley. It’s an unlikely place for theatre, but a lot of good theatre and good times come from there. The audience eats pizza and drinks beer in their seats, and their closeness to the actors makes it exciting. Artistic Director Melissa Hillman’s showmanship in her curtain speeches set the irreverent tone and relaxes you out of any theatre stiffness and pretension. If you haven’t been, and you don’t mind unpadded theatre seats for two hours, take in this vibrant theatre experience of throbbing, young talent. 

 

The Play About the Naked Guy at Impact Theatre  

Playing at La Val’s Pizza 1834 Euclid, Berkeley through DEC 11th 

Tickets: 510 464-4468 / www.impacttheatre.com 

Written by David Bell, directed by Evren Odcikin , costumes by Miyuki Bierlein, stage management by Ashley Bodnar, graphics by Cheshire Isaacs, lighting by Anne Kendall, set by Jax Steager, sound by Colin Trevor. 

WITH: Adrian Anchondo , Timitio Artusio, Monica Cappuccini, John Ferreira, Eliza Leoni, Brian McManus, Jai Sahai, and Steven Satyricon. 

John A. McMullen II is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association. Editing by E J Dunne.  

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