Fat Men in Skirts

Only a couple more chances to see "Fat Men in Skirts" at VCU, directed by my dear friend (and soon to be my dear director once we start "Compleat Works") Jonathan Flack! Tonight at 8:00 PM and tomorrow at 2:00 PM at Shafer St. Playhouse.

I saw it last night and I think I can speak for at least 90% of the audience when I say, quite simply, "Nicky Silver, you are a freak. A brilliant, brilliant freak". The play is chock-full of dark humor, sickening moments, incest, rape, cannibalism, and then moments where you really, truly want to run up onstage and rescue these characters before they totally destroy themselves.

Eben Kuhns is such a delightful surprise. I had only met him once before and I had never seen him act, so I had no idea what to expect. He is completely adorable at first, a stuttering eleven-year-old with a fixation on Katherine Hepburn, and yet when he morphs into a controlling, terrifyingly dangerous teenager, it is totally believable. The fact that he can snap back and forth between these two personalities is really telling of his acting ability.

Jenn Vick, the gorgeous Jenn Vick, is so good at simultaneously making you want to slap her and making you want to hug her. Her Phyllis is really heartbreaking, funny, and such a bitch. When she commands her son to eat lipstick in order to survive, it sounds totally plausible. When she has her shoe-obsessed breakdown, it also sounds totally plausible. Not an easy task, and she carries it off beautifully.

Bryan Hall reminded me of Robert Goulet with a dash of John Cleese and with a big helping of Ridiculously Funny sprinkled on top. Everything about him - the way he looked to the way he talked to his posture - helps suck you in and get invested in this character who really can be a complete jerk, and yet his inevitable destruction is wrenching.

Oh, and when Gentry Roth runs out as Popo Martin in all her schizophrenic glory, I couldn't help but immediately thing "This girl is the next Judy Greer". She's adorable...in that paranoid, potholder-making kind of way. Her time playing Pam is great, but it's really Popo that endears her to me.

Please go see it, if you can...it's FREE! and very well-done. Break a leg for the rest of your run, guys!