The Company
of “Hot Fudge”, as part of PTP/NYC’s 35th Season at Atlantic Stage 2
Photo:Stan Barouh
PTP/NYC’s 35th Season: Sex,
Grift, and Death
By Deirdre Donovan
The PTP/NYC (Potomac Theatre Project) repertory season is
back! In a limited run at Atlantic’s Stage 2, the company
celebrates their 35th Anniversary Season at Atlantic’s Stage 2 with
two programs: “Sex, Grift, and Death” and “Reverse Transcription.”
First up was British playwright Steven Berkoff’s “Lunch.” And
indeed, the very vehemence and savagery of this short play has
something incredibly comic about it. In it, we meet a Man (Bill
Army) and Woman (Jackie Sanders) on a beach anywhere. Although supposedly
complete strangers, they find themselves sexually attracted to
each other and yearning for some kind of connection. But how do
they break the ice? No, it’s not immediately with
conventional dialogue but with that time-worn theatrical device called asides, courtesy
of Churchill. Indeed, we get to eavesdrop on their passionate
thoughts, their fears, their dreams. In short, we get to
see what makes them tick. And, indeed, the Man is
summoning up his nerve to introduce himself to the Woman. Interestingly,
he can readily quote lines from “The Love Song of Alfred
J. Prufrock.” This narrative poem, by the bye, with its
entrenched angst, becomes the perfect metaphor for the Man’s own
misgivings and loneliness. Although the Woman feigns indifference to the
Man early on, she slowly lets down her guard and engages in a real
conversation—and more—with the Man before the
play’s ends. Berkoff’s language is terse,
sexually-charged, richly poetic, and funny. Prepare to
be blown away by the twists and turns in this
piece. Boldly directed by Richard Romagnoli, this provocative
pas de deux uncovers some profound truths about being a human being.
Next up was British playwright Caryl Churchill’s four-scene piece “Hot
Fudge,” Although it originally was written to be a companion piece to
“Ice Cream,” this work stands alone just
fine. Theatergoers familiar with Churchill’s
play Serious Money will discover that “Hot Fudge,” with its
financial entanglements, is its close cousin. The plot? In
this alcohol-saturated work, we go on a whirlwind tour of an amoral
world. Its first scene takes place in a pub at 7 p.m., where we
meet Matt (Gibson Grimm), Sonia (Molly Dorion), Charlie (Chris
Marshall), June (Danielle Skraastad), and Ruby (Tara Giordano), a shady
bunch who seem to thrive on listening to each other’s illegal
dealings. Sonia and Matt are defrauding banks, Ruby runs
a prospering travel agency, Jerry’s (Terry Best) a global manager,
and Hugh’s (Chris Marshall) an estate agent. Churchill artfully
employs non sequiturs and overlapping dialogue to point up the chaotic
mind set of this greedy quintet. Scene Two fast forwards us two
hours to a wine bar, where Ruby and Colin (David Barlow) are on a
first date, swapping life stories and learning about each other’s respective
jobs in travel and the media. In spite of the laughter
that punctuates their conversation, one continually wonders whether
they are telling the truth or lies. The work gets
zanier in Scene Three, where we see Ruby and Colin in a club at 11
p.m., accompanied by the energetic Jerry, Grace (Wynn McClenahan), and
Hugh. Scene Four, set in Colin’s flat, is the real zinger,
however. Colin’s ex-wife arrives on the scene creating
a ménage à trois. And that’s all I’ll say here or risk
being a spoiler. Directed with zest by Cheryl Faraone, “Hot
Fudge” is a noir comedy that teaches us that self-invention can be a
slippery slope indeed.
The program wraps up with Churchill’s three-scene piece, “Here We
Go.” Set at a party after a funeral, the play’s breezy
title is actually a euphemism for death. Although one might
think that this subject is a bit heavy for summertime, Churchill’s
treatment of it makes it right to watch anytime. The play
is not only a heart-felt tribute to a deceased man but a vibrant
portrait of him. We learn from his mourners that he lived
through a war and three marriages, that he had an extraordinary mind
that embraced both literature and science, and that he could tell a
joke. This opening section surreally segues into a kind of confessional for
the mourners. Lastly, there’s a flashback to the
final days of the deceased man’s life, ending with a dumb show in
which his caretaker repeatedly dresses and undresses him.
Reverse Transcription
Reverse Transcription invites the audience to visit the pandemics of
yesteryear (The HIV/AIDS Crisis) and today (COVID), with the pairing
of two plays, Robert Chesley’s “Dog Plays” and Jim Petosa and
Jonathan Adler’s “A Variant Strain.”
Robert Chesley, who wrote his “Dog Plays” in the two-years following his
AIDS diagnosis in 1988, was a playwright of wit, observation, and
sound craftmanship. The current revival of his “Dog Plays”
is particularly meaningful because they serve as a prologue
for Petosa and Adler’s “A Variant Strain.”
In the first vignette of “Dog Plays,” entitled “(Wild) Person, Tense
(Dog)”, we meet the 45-year old San Francisco gay man called Dog
(James Patrick Nelson). At the opening of the play, he addresses
the audience: “I’ve just seen a ghost. But he ain’t
dead.” The ghost, of course, is Buck (Joshua Mallin)
and when he materializes on stage, Dog has a difficult time looking
at him. As the moments pass, however, Dog and Buck do
engage in a serious conversation on the impact of AIDS on their gay
community and how the virus is now ravaging their own
bodies. Yes, there’s so much more to say about
their lives. But Buck vanishes from sight, leaving
Dog to his own thoughts. Directed by Petosa, the piece gets off to a
slow start but gains traction as the action unfolds.
If the first scene is ghostly, the second piece, “The Deploration of
Rover,” is haunting as well. It
presents the 40-something Fido (Jonathan Tindle), an overweight gay
man who directly addresses the audience as he takes a toke of
weed. He ruminates about the parties that once happened on Castro
Street, where the beautiful gay men would gather. His
reverie is interrupted when he suddenly catches sight of a display window
with a memorial picture of a handsome gay man named Rover, who he once had
a crush on. Fido sadly sighs:” Oh! So you’re dead
too, now?” Dog shortly enters the space, and seeing the picture
of Rover, confesses that he too was infatuated with Rover,
remembering him as The Golden Shower Queen of All Time. This piece,
also directed by Petosa, gives one an authentic and disturbing look at the
early days of the AIDS crisis.
The “Dog Plays” come full circle with the vignette, “Hold.” Set
in Dog’s apartment in Buena Vista Park, San Francisco, the character
Lad (Trey Atkins) is in bed, naked, suffering from full-blown
AIDS. The character Dog also has AIDS—but presently he is
more preoccupied with Lad’s condition, including his
dementia. In fact, Lad recently went missing for two days,
prompting his room-mate to call Dog, and then the police. While
Dog worried if Lad might be suicidal, the police fortunately found Lad at
the end of a dirt road in Marin. There are lighter moments in
this dark piece. For instance, Lad is obsessed with describing
his recent dream about the stars to Dog, in which he regains all his
friends who have passed away from AIDS. Lad digresses a
moment, however, and asks Dog to look out the window at the Dog
Star. With both of them gazing at it, Lad draws
an imaginary line from it to the San Francisco General Hospital and then
to Dog’s chest, forming a triangle in the process. It’s
all an illusion, he tells Dog, referring to the stars that can
seem so close, yet are light years away. But, illusion or
not, this moment of tenderness between Lad and Dog is moving.
A Variant Strain
Jonathan Adler and Jim Petosa’s two-act play, ”A Variant Strain,” is set
in New Dog’s New York City apartment. The time is
a few days before Thanksgiving, 2020. No question it
borrows motifs from Chelsey’s “Dog Plays.” But why
not? As Adler and Petosa say in their program
note: “There is a common maxim that history does not
repeat itself, but it often rhymes. For us, the contemporary rhyme
with the world of Robert Chesley’s play is urgent and provocative.”
The play begins with the character New Dog (Francis Price) getting a blow
job from a Hook Up Guy. After the trick leaves,
New Dog mindlessly scrolls through his phone. Not finding
anything that holds his interest, he turns and directly addresses the
audience, using them as his confidante. He attempts to explain
to us his isolation and his need for human
connection. But no sooner does he begin his speech than he
is interrupted by the signal alert on his phone. Yes, it is Old
Dog (James Patrick Nelson, who needs to be let into his
apartment. Unlike the Hook Up Guy, the character Old Dog is
talkative and has opinions on everything and everybody. New Dog
and he engage in conversation. New Dog tells him that he is
a nurse at Mt. Sinai and that he’s been off work on quarantine for
Thanksgiving. Old Dog remarks: “They say we’re going
to have another Roarin’ ‘20’s on the other side of all of
this.” New Dog immediately retorts: “I know, but I think
it’ll be more like gay liberation, but for everyone.” A Variant
Strain” is a sensitive, intergenerational two-act play that
investigates the pandemic through a gay man’s lens. Its
best moments are when it picks up resonances from Chesley’s “Dog
Plays” and teaches us the importance of humility when facing forces
larger than ourselves (think AIDS and COVID). Or as Old Dog aptly
puts it: “Draw an imaginary line from you up to the Dog
Star. Then draw another line down from the Dog Star
to me. And draw a line from me back to you. Do you
see the big triangle? You, the star, me, to you. .
.do you?” Directed by Petosa, this play vividly speaks to
our world today. While we can’t watch it with the same
kind of distance that we can bring to the “Dog Plays,” “Reverse
Transcription” still provides us with an invaluable perspective on our current
pandemic.
Indeed, the 2022 PTP/NYC repertory season brings New York theatergoers a
lot to chew on. Although not all the plays
offered this summer are going to please everyone, there’s surely a wide
variety of dramas, pertinent subjects tackled, and excellent acting
on view.
Through July 31, 2022
At the Atlantic Stage 2, 330 W. 16th Street, Manhattan.
For more information, visit www.ptpnyc.com
Sex, Grift and Death running time: 1 hour; 55 minutes with one
intermission.
Reverse Transcription running time: 1 hour; 40 minutes with one
intermission.
