Meanwhile, he assembled a superb ensemble to portray a series of gay dates from hell, tingling with the sexual tensions and rejections of a constantly encroaching jungle of desire.
All three players were fluently skilled in universal body language, exposing vibrant paint boxes of comic virtuosity that sometimes left the audience in stitches.
Rob Gomes (who could rename himself "Troy Hunk") is a sweet and very funny actor. With a face as fluid as his emotions, he went from standard god-type to Neanderthal muscle pumper to dietary psycho-babbler - all at break-neck speed, and kept the audience in smiles - even cadging unsolicited applause.
John Alban Coughlan realized the role of all the rest of us who ever pined for Venus or Adonis and felt like Zit City entering his/her presence. A romantic nebbish who's every lonely woman's best friend, and who hasn't had sex in two years, he's the perfect, non-threatening plain jane you grow to love because a soul mate's in there yearning to make nice.
Sarah Zinsser, in a series of minor roles - with as many voices and accents as hair styles (the funniest one must have been by Cuisinart) - has comedic talent bordering on genius. It's worth ordering a flavorless dessert just to hear her inscrutable Asian waitress recite the bill of fare, wherein the name of not one single dish is comprehensible.
Though the set by Steven Markus wasn't much, Jeff Fontaine's lighting, though not attention-calling, threw in some neat effects. The music glorified the play with songs that shaped our consciousness, especially self-pitying, broken-romance songs that got the audience to sing along, abetted by Audible Difference's especially good sound system.
There's raunchy language in the play, but certainly no nudity, with actors bundled to their chins in street clothes. (The men's could have been better pressed Opening Night.)
The humiliating human situations that afflict all human beings lent universality to what otherwise would have been a parochially gay play. But the author neutralized the poignancy by capping too many scenes with a drum-like ta-ta-boom ending which disoriented continuity, creating what seemed to be repetitive play writing exercises. A shame.
Aunt Nancy, glued to Donahue each weekday, is getting sensitized to alternate lifestyles. She'll definitely laugh out loud. Gay men who have a chance to see this play in future incarnations will definitely come out proud.
Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger