NOBODY PUTS THIS BABY IN A CORNER

A set doesn’t get any sparser than the one for Gangsta Baby, in the sense that there isn’t one.

You step in off the street into a basement with two dozen chairs arranged along the walls. In a corner is a small built-in kitchenette, original to the building. The black walls are adorned with colorful graffiti. In the center of the room the hot water pipes of the building are incorporated into the action of the play; they’d have to be I guess since they aren’t going anywhere. Set designer Phoebe Huggett utilizes every inch of the available space. The steps down from the door double as a dump where the protagonist plays as a teen, and later as a cliff overlooking the sea. The doors into the basement serve as doors into the flat. Do spare a thought for the unfortunate pedestrians who may pass by when Junior tears out onto the sidewalk screaming in a fit of rage.

Bryan Nicholas Carter, Cameron Raasdal-Munro

Open Space Arts has brought Gangsta Baby from London to Chicago with its lead actor and writer, Cameron Raasdal-Munro, and director Rikki Beadle-Blair (MBE) in tow. The play follows Junior, a gay sex worker living in a squalid flat in a working-class city in Hastings, UK. It opens with an encounter between Junior and one of his clients, Mitch, an upwardly mobile black man who uses sex workers to reenact the humiliations of his school years, when, as a day student at a public school, he was mercilessly bullied by his wealthy classmates. Things go awry when this session is crashed by Junior’s father, a gangster fallen on rough times.

Jensen Knudsen, Cameron Raasdal-Munro.

The confrontation between Junior and his father, with Mitch in the middle forms the main plot line of the play. Raasdal-Munro cuts back and forth from this to scenes from Junior’s childhood and youth—where his trans half-brother Pete is introduced—as well as his father’s youth, as we put together how these characters came to be in this place at this time.

Josh Odor, Cameron Raasdal-Munro.

Raasdal-Munro is an actor of considerable charisma and is very good as Junior for the most part, but the disjointed nature of the storytelling makes his work difficult. I wondered if the show might have benefitted from having a different actor play the younger Junior. Given the rapid-fire pacing of the show—its ninety minutes just fly by—the shifts between Junior at different ages are too fast for the actor to effectively recalibrate.

Jensen Knudsen, Cameron Raasdal-Munro, Josh Odor

The rest of the cast is a mixed bag. Bryan Nicholas Carter is fantastic and absolutely hilarious when he’s playing Mitch, but less effective in his other two roles which is unfortunate because one of those roles—Jonno—while small, is crucial to the plot and its resolution.

Cameron Raasdal-Munro, Jensen Knudsen

Jensen Knudsen as Pete did not work for me at all. Playing a talented street artist on the verge of making it big and earning their ticket out, their performance has none of the edge, roughness, or savvy that one would expect of someone who’s had to fight their way out. It’s a shame because Pete’s scenes with Junior are among the best written in the play and given that Raasdal-Munro is also weakest when he’s playing young, something that could have been special was lost.

Bryan Nicholas Carter, Josh Odor

The best performance of the play comes from Josh Odor who is a terrifying force of nature as Junior’s violent, abusive gangster father. Tapping deeply into his character’s rage and self-loathing, Odor creates a father who brutalizes his son because he doesn’t know any other way of parenting. It is a singularly powerful performance and so well executed that at every later appearance of Senior, a shudder ran through the audience. He brings with him an aura pregnant with the possibility of violence every time he steps onto the stage. (A quick nod to dialect coach, Jason A. Fleece: The accents of the three American actors, especially Odor, are top-notch.)

Cameron Raasdal-Munro

Director Rikki Beadle-Blair puts the actors through their paces with a sure hand. The last thirty minutes or so, in particular, are brilliantly directed; the pace is so frenetic that it is easy to miss how carefully controlled and choreographed the mayhem is. This is also an interesting meeting of space and subject: in a performance space this small, the actors are frequently right on top, occasionally even brushing up against the audience. The claustrophobic closeness of the violence, not to mention the screams of the actors during the abuse scenes, creates a nerve-wracking sense of immersion for the audience. I was certainly shaken.

Cameron Raasdal-Munro, Josh Odor

This is a story of transgenerational trauma and abuse, stoked by internalized homophobia. We never get to see if Junior escapes the cycle, we just hope he does. It’s not new. We’ve read, seen, and heard this story before. Late in the show, a character even refers to Junior as a “queer cliché”. They’re not wrong but in this world of same-sex marriage and pride parades, it’s easy for some of us to forget that for a significant number—possibly even a majority—of people, open acknowledgement of their queerness still comes with the strong possibility of exile, physical harm, or death, not just from the cruel world around them but also from those meant to love and protect them.

Yes, Junior’s story is not a new one.

But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t deserve to be told.

Or that we should stop listening.

Bryan Nicholas Carter, Josh Odor, Cameron Raasdal-Munro, Jensen Knudsen

photos by Tadhg Mitchel

Gangsta Baby
Open Space Arts/Arts Judaica, in association with Her Story Theater
Open Space Arts, 1411 W Wilson
95 minutes, no intermission
Fri and Sat at 7:30; Sun at 2; Thurs at 7:30 (Oct. 16)
ends on October 5, 2025 EXTENDED to October 19, 2025
for tickets ($25-$30), visit Open Space Arts

for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago

Josh Odor, Jensen Knudsen