title

title
Photo by Don Kellogg

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Straight Up with a Twist

Paul Stroili is the writer and performer of a one man show at The Players Theater in Greenwich Village. I'm torn on this one. It's not so much the actor as it was the subject matter. First of all - one person show has THERAPY written all over it. Nothing different here. It's self admitted somewhere along the way too.

Second of all - What's a straight man doing in a one man show? What traumatic experience does he have to share with all of us? Is he a gay Mormon kicked out of his family, on drugs, and a hooker in NYC (ala Steven Fales, Confessions of a Mormon Boy)? A gay Mormon mourning his dead boyfriend? (ala Jay Perry, Facing East)? A gay man channeling Ethel Merman (The Big Voice)? I know he's not an 80+ year old recovering alcoholic actress (Elaine Stritch, at Liberty) nor a Blond bombshell struggling to show she's got talent (Susanne Sommers, Blond in the Thunderbird)... i could go on and on...

So what is he? He's a straight man who knows the difference between Merlot and Cabernet; who knows the difference between mauve and taupe and who knows how to fold a fitted sheet (doesn't everyone?!). It's the story of what he calls the "Renaissance Geeks". I for one am not buying it. He also doesn't like the term "metrosexual". Well that's good because he certainly doesn't dress well and doesn't look very "pretty". (as in, he ain't gettin' a part in Dawson's Creek).

What did i like... strike that... LOVE? His impersonations for sure. Rich Little - eat your heart out. He tells the story thru dialogues with his mother (cigarettes and brooklyn accent - merits of course). His father (Italian accent), his older brother (goomba johnny), his jewish grandmother (pick up if you're there!) and his psychiatrist (as a patient he's the Mercedes). I'd much rather have just sat and listened to him tell a story thru these characters - but instead I had to endure his complaints that children and later adults all thought he was gay - how tragic! How sad for him! To be branded gay. Gosh.

Let's not waste two hours over complaining about being called gay. The therapy and catharsis might be cheap and it might play well in the red states of Jesusland, but aside from a few B&T's who got cheap tickets on a Saturday night, it's not bound to play well to a mostly gay audience in New York City (in the west village, no less!).