| . | 02/20/2008
THE PLAY ABOUT THE NAKED GUY
By: Eugene Paul
If you think this play can't run and run and make a buck Off-Broadway, you're crazy. If you think this play can't run and run on Broadway, well, maybe you're crazy and maybe you're not. The Play about the Naked Guy has everything. It's an equal opportunity offender, it offends gays, it offends straights, it offends show business as a whole, including the audience, and zings several well known names. It even offends porn, soft or - well, no, there's no hard core but not due to an onslaught of taste, judgment and discrimination. More to do with the law.
As for story line and character development, their execution and right to execution, did I mention that there are laughs and laughs and laughs? And, of course, the naked guy. You even get to judge for yourself whether or not the porn star really has what it takes to - or, rather, no, you don't. We won't go there. Suffice it to say, that the Integrity Players, having played their last night of an 18th century verse play to an audience of ten - six paid - are torn asunder when Mrs. Anderson, (Ellen Reilly) mother to leading lady Amanda (Stacy Mayer) and sole backer of the company, decides to pull out her daughter, twenty-six weeks pregnant, and her money. Daughter's husband, Dan (Jason Schuchman), director and guiding genius of the company is aghast. Leading man Harold (Wayne Henry) reacts by getting intensely drunk in a gay bar, then arrives the next morning for their crisis meeting, a convert to gayness, with three raging gays who are thrilled to take over the agenda of the Integrity Players and Make Money.
How? Need you ask? Kit Swagger, porn star, (Dan Amboyer) will star in their unique stage version of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ --with a few changes-- but not too many since they think it's porn already. And the pregnant Amanda gets won over by playing the birthing of Jesus live and for real, depending on timing. Now, how's that for integrity. Mother is impressed. Her money goes back in since Kit insists on being paid or no show. (Mother, of course, is not really converted; she plans a double cross. Little does she know.)
Thus, on the thinnest of threadbare frames, playwright David Bell hangs his gaudy, skewed tale and the gang runs with it. Chief of them is a swanning queen of a director, Eddie Rossini (Christopher Borg), who, along with his two twink slaves, T. Scott and Adonis (Christopher Sloan and Chad Austin) win over not only Mother Anderson, not only daughter Amanda but, of course, Harold, now so out of the closet he rages at being twitted as a “New Gay”. And when rehearsals turn deadly dull, Harold, in a really funny scene, give Kit Uta Hagen's book on acting and teaches Kit how to reach his inner self. Kit, in gratitude, gives Harold lots of outer self. Of course we can all see where this is going but director Tom Wojtunik keeps the bubble in the air skillfully after a scary opening and his dedicated company never lets him down. Equally amazing, set designer Michael T. Kramer and costume designer David Withrow seem to think they each have a million dollars to spend and work miracles.
There are lessons to be learned, one of the greatest functions of Theater.(1) We may all be different but we're not all that different when it comes to money. (2) Money is not only the great Unequalizer, it is also the great Equalizer. With it you can do and be anything. Without it, hasta la vista, baby. If that leaves an unpleasant taste in your mouth, you're right. The Play about the Naked Guy makes no bones about it but there's lots of laughs.
Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue at 25th Street. Access on 25th Street. Mon 7 pm, Fri 9:30 pm, Sat 8 pm, Sun 5 pm. Tickets: http://www.eatheatre.org or 866-811-4111. $50.
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