The cast of Woolly’s “Bootycandy” (photo by Stan Barouh).Rarely is the act of navel-gazing so entertaining and thought-provoking as it is in Robert O’Hara’s Bootycandy, performed at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
Helen Hayes Award winner O’Hara wrote and directed this assembly of brief, interconnected plays nearly on the fly, completely rewriting them just before production was to begin. Perhaps that is why the pieces feel so fresh and raw. Or perhaps just because some scenes feel so close to the heart; O’Hara writes of a child growing up quickly, trying to deal with sexuality and words he is just beginning to understand, making for some awkward moments and some bona fide hilarity. Other parts deal with love, lust, desire, a need for human connection — and men in fabulous dresses.
Each piece ranges from outrageously funny to emotionally wrenching, always making the audience feel something more than just laughter. In the middle, Sutter/Actor 2 (Phillip James Brannon) tells a slimy moderator that all he wants his audiences to do is to “choke,” to digest the material with difficulty so that they feel it afterward. The small pieces in Bootycandy are just that, small, but they are delivered with such punch that it would be hard to forget them.
The play shifts from scene to scene effortlessly, with a minimum of props and a maximum of acting ability. Brannon is the only actor in all the pieces who stays pretty much the same, although he shifts in age. His Sutter is alternately funny, heavy, sensitive and repugnant, all while keeping the audience engaged. The rest of the cast are chameleons. Sean Meehan (Actor 5) is full of energy and is ready to slap it all down on the table (at times, literally). His would-be mugging victim cries out to his assailant with a great mix of anger and anxiety, but he also shines when he hosts a “non-commitment ceremony” for two lesbians who want to split. The lesbians are just two of the many, many masks put on by Jessica Frances Dukes and Laiona Michelle, but the ceremony is one of the funniest scenes they are given together, and they deliver powerful blows. Lance Coadie Williams is an over-the-top reverend, a hetero-normative stepfather, a sassy grandmother and so on. Dukes, Michelle and Williams inhabit each character so facilely that all traces of them are left behind when they switch.
Woolly’s production draws attention to the way that we use language to expose and cover ourselves up. In the lobby, patrons are encouraged to label themselves with pre-written nametags saying “straight,” “gay,” “freaky,” and so forth. One wall is lined with whiteboards in alphabetical order, encouraging visitors to write their own sexual-euphemism dictionary. It’s not an incredibly engaging ploy — less than a third of the audience seemed to care about the labels — but it serves the purpose of getting thoughts flowing in the hopes that something will stick.
Bootycandy is an event of very funny and transgressive works, loosely tied together by plot but bound by the common interest of making some truths of our society hard to swallow. It’s a look inside a playwright’s mind, and, though it gets really meta, it’s affecting. The pieces are small but thoughtful, and with a cast this full of life and character, they should get you thinking, whether you want them to or not.
Bootycandy runs through June 26 at Woolly Mammoth. Tickets are available online.
