A CurtainUp Review
Bootycandy
By Elyse Sommer
O'Hara, who burst on the theatrical scene in 1996 as George C. Wolfe's prodigy with Insurrection, has been refining and expanding this sketch dramedy since 2000. That's when Dreaming In Church and Genitalia, two of his funniest and most satirically incisive pieces, were presented as part of a one-act play evening called Snapshots . A larger collection of Bootcandy playlets was presented at the Off-Off Broadway Kraine Theater in 2003 (review ). Fortunately, Playwrights Horizons' Bootcandy still has the Reverend Benson's chastising his rumor mongering congregation and flamboyantly revealing his own sartorial tastes. The two sisters arguing about naming a baby Genitalia are also part of the mix. Given this production's elaborate and witty stagecraft and its brilliantly adaptable cast, the Reverend and the sisters are funnier than ever. And many of the never before seen plays mix comedy with more serious material. As is common for this assemblage theatrical style, not all of Bootycandy's ten scenes hit their satirical mark as perfectly as Dreaming in Church and Genitalia. But enough do so to make this an intriguing and original outing for anyone open to convention busting theater. The complete Bootycandy adds up to a panorama of scenes depicting the world of a gay, black man growing up in America. The curtain raiser, besides amusingly explaining the evening's umbrella title. introduces us to Sutter, O'Hara's stand-in. Phillip James Brannon, the only cast member who plays just one character, exhibits remarkable range, whether as a curious ten-year-old, a sullen and misunderstood teen, or a young man in the throes of an affair. I usually don't like to see adults playing children, but Dukes' grade-school aged Sutter frustrated by all the words he hears but can't find in the dictionary his mommy bought him, is irresistible. Jessica Frances Dukes is comic perfection as Sutter's no-nonsense Mom and she goes from strength to strength in five additional roles. Sutter's life journey makes stops at his home, his church, the hangouts of his adult life and ultimately a visit to grandma's nursing home. These interconnected and often vaudeville-like interludes are vividly populated by Brannon and Dukes' multi-tasking colleagues, with Jesse Pennington playing all the white men. Some of these roles are particularly unforgettable — like Lance Coadie Williams' flamboyant Reverend with the diva hidden inside his holy robe, and Benja Kay Thomas's on-a-dime-turnarounds from one argumentative sister to another in Genitalia The first act ends with a terrific meta-theatrical sketch that inventively brings the entire cast on stage for a conference of black playwrights that feels like an intermission but is really an ironic precursor to one. It's moderated with blissful cluelessness by a white moderator (Pennington). As he tries to draw the writers out about what they've written, it's quite obvious that they are the authors of what we've just seen. It's in having the moderator unfailingly misinterpret each author's intent that O'Hara lands his sharpest satirical jabs which fully intend the audience to uncomfortably look into their own expectations from plays by black and/or gay playwrights. O'Hara, who also directs, follows the intermission with two more uproarious sketches, Happy Meal and Ceremony. In the first, Sutter is subjected to a rant from his Mom (now portrayed by Benja Kay Thomas, as Jessica Frances Dukes who was the younger Mom morphs into Sutter's kid sister). Mom's scolding focuses on Sutter's effeminate leanings and obsessive reading of Jackie Collins novels. Ceremony goes counter to the current focus of happy homosexual weddings, by having two Lesbians uncouple, each vowing "Wherever you go, I will not be." There's another try at a meta-theatrical riff but it doesn't work too well, and neither does a final one entitled Nursing Home. This is exacerbated by the fact that these pieces go on too long. In fact, even most of the more successful sketches would all benefit from losing a few minutes. To get back to the more positive. . . I've already mentioned the high quality of this production's stagecraft. But Clint Ramos's use of the Playwrights Horizons stage deserves an extra loud and long shout-out. The revolving scenery is ingeniously inventive. And the costumes (also by Ramos) do much to intensify the characters' personalities, as do Dave Bova's wigs and makeup. Ramos and Bova brilliantly create the sort of lightning fast character transformations made famous by Charles Ludlum's Mystery of Irma Vep. These designers are truly stars of this enterprise. They should be taking curtain calls along with the actors.
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