PATHETIC PAYBACK
Some plays all but ambush their audience–dramatic Trojan horses that promise laughs and deliver the opposite. Aesthetically treacherous, they lure innocent onlookers into enjoying an unthreatening lifestyle comedy, then turn the tables and unleash some very intended consequences. “Some plays” in this case is the chillingly cynical Angry Fags, a disturbing modern-day revenge tragedy. Its perpetrator is Topher Payne, a supple playwright who’s also an uncompromising ethical extremist. A scary entry by Pride Films and Plays in Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s “Garage Rep” showcase, this two-act drama takes its unpleasant title as seriously as a terrorist attack.
In fact that’s the nasty menu for Payne’s suavely deceptive political thriller. The ostensible situation is the reelection campaign for openly lesbian State Senator Allison Haines (Kelli Walker), an Atlanta liberal who’s running against right-wing, evangelical-lover Peggy Musgrove (a surprisingly likable Joann McGrath). Haines and Musgrove are locked in a tight race where each side appeals to its base and any event can get politicized in a heartbeat. Cue the gay bashing of Sammy, a drunken druggie who’s beaten into a coma with a baseball bat and left to die.
Sammy’s ex-boyfriend, Alabama-raised Bennett Riggs (Kevin Webb) and a deft campaign aide for Haines, is enraged by this gratuitous assault. He’s even more incensed by his candidate’s unwillingness to label it a hate crime. Adding fuel to the fire, Bennett is encouraged by another “angry fag,” his gossipy, laser-witted, queeny pal Cooper Harlow (James Nedrud), to go beyond words to action. Working each other into a righteous lather, these Dixie tyros fume that, if gays can’t be respected enough to win equal justice and rights, fear will achieve what politics will not. Instead of promising bullied kids that “It gets better,” “We have to MAKE it better” and “stand up for the tribe.” Only when you kill for your cause are you taken seriously.
And do they ever. What seemed to be an Aaron Sorkin-style political comedy, witty with one-liners, slick put-downs and glib epithets, quickly mutates into a cold-blooded chronicle of devious sabotage and serial assassinations. We get vigilante justice with collateral damage raised to lethal overkill. The victims of their terrifying “gay agenda” are the usual targets–closeted homophobes, thinly suspected bashers, traitors in the ranks, ultimately anyone who threatens to thwart their rainbow vendetta.
Even sadder than the slaughter, if possible, is how quickly Bennett and Cooper succumb to ISIS-rancid abominations. Whatever moral qualms these urbane sophisticates might harbor to resist this reign of terror are quelled in an instant. Finally, Bennett’s boyfriend Adam Lowell (Jude Hansen), Haines’ chief of staff and the remaining homosexual character, finds himself drawn into the carnage–more than we could ever expect.
Payne’s cautionary, sometimes sickly sadistic story (at least one scene is almost unwatchable) is a very black lavender comedy. Angry Fags delivers no desired comeuppance. It earns its title to the bitter end. To enjoy its stranger danger, you must be willing to roll with the punches and accept the extrapolated ugliness of what “MAKE it better” really means.
Director Derek Van Barham couldn’t wish for a more stylish production, its intensity goosed by G. Maxin IV’s galvanizing scenic and media design. The streamlined show is fueled by focused performances fr0m seven splendidly cast, viscerally vital performers. (Also effective are Dennis Frymire as a hapless detective and Lisa Herceg as the very agreeable office manager.)
Ultimately and perversely, this experiment in exploitative extremism will confirm the haters’ worst nightmares. It stands or falls on how much you want to see Matthew Shepard’s tragedy reversed, repeated, and amplified. The word “Fags” is hardly the only roadblock to enjoying this bleak tour de merde.
photos by Anna Sodziak
Angry Fags
Pride Films and Plays
part of Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s Garage Rep 2015
Garage Theatre, 1624 N Halsted St
ends on April 26, 2015
for tickets, call 312-335-1650 or visit www.steppenwolf.org
for info on Chicago Theater, visit www.TheatreinChicago.com
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Tour de merde, bien sur. Loved most of the acting, especially the conservative politician, but it really seemed beyond contrived and, worse, morally relative in such an extreme way that I never knew such a thing could become.
I also agree completely with this reviewer’s reference to Shepard.