Jou, Jesse

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares99 Views

    Review: Star-Crossed Lovers in Need of a Divine Assist

    by

    Andrew Rincón’s play about reigniting passions in the heavens and the bedroom is a jumble of genres at 59E59 Theaters.Tired of digesting all the world’s heartbreak, Cupid calls it quits in Andrew Rincón’s “I Wanna F*ck Like Romeo and Juliet.” The play, a New Light Theater Project production having its premiere at 59E59 Theaters, is experiencing a similar existential crisis. Despite appealing performances, smooth direction by Jesse Jou, and some touching moments, this cosmic look at the pains of love aims wobbly arrows at too many marks.Seeing his friend Cupid (Jacqueline Guillén), the goddess of love, so distraught, Saint Valentine (Greg Cuellar) tries to remind her of affection’s earthly charms by taking her to Hackensack, N.J., where a young couple in the middle of a breakup might provide the challenge she needs to get back in the spirit.That couple, Alejandro (a sturdy Juan Arturo) and Benny (Ashton Muñiz, a soothing presence with comedic chops), have decided to separate after six years together, but Valentine thinks the relationship is worth saving. Cupid and Valentine each pick one to take on a journey of self-discovery, with the goal of guiding them back to each other. These pilgrimages, however, lead to hastily mentioned histories of internalized shame and sexual abuse that overburden the play’s final 20 minutes.Rincón dabbles in the poetic, mixing the mortals’ sometimes self-help-sounding domestic discourse with grandiose statements of love everlasting from the divine duo, who are prone to endless arguments. (That said, it is Alejandro who speaks the childish title phrase, a romanticization of Shakespeare’s text not meant to read as satire.) The clash highlights the play’s confusion as to whether it wants to be a comedy about meddling powers, or a drama about a couple whose breakup undergoes divine intervention. Brittany Vasta’s two-level set, nicely split between the heavens and the bedroom, makes a stronger case for this duality.The same can’t be said for the script, which is untidy in its overuse of Spanglish. Aside from a great joke when a character is shocked to discover the love goddess is a Latina (“Did you really think Cupid could be anything but?”), the Spanish in the text, liberally sprinkled throughout, lacks cohesion because its significance hasn’t been established. When it is used to convey meaningful points, I wondered if non-speakers would be able to follow along, or what Hispanic viewers were supposed to gain. It’s maddening when another tongue is used as a crutch, a substitute for personality that winds up exoticizing the language it sets out to exalt, or “normalize.” If a sentiment lacks power when expressed without a show of bilingualism, it does not gain it through translation.At times it seems as if the play could have revolved around Betti (Elizabeth Ramos), a romantically inexperienced dental hygienist Benny befriends and starts dating, somewhat platonically. Ramos’s smallness during her first scene gives way to an explosive physical performance as Betti comes into her own and experiences first love (with Cupid, no less). Through sheer allure, the actress turns a character largely superfluous to the already jumbled story into the production’s most valuable, displaying the irresistibility of earnest hope in a work that too often dips into its bathos.I Wanna F*ck Like Romeo and JulietThrough Nov. 5 at 59E59 Theaters, Manhattan; 59e59.org. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      Review: ‘Bruise & Thorn,’ a Gay Fantasia at a Laundromat

      by

      Hip-hop, impromptu duckwalks and loving shade fill C. Julian Jiménez’s new play about two cousins dreaming of escaping their day jobs.At a combination Pizza Hut-Taco Bell in Jamaica, Queens, the gender-fluid Thorn works on a rap — hinged on the line “I gotta leave New York City” — that will hopefully lead to an escape by way of an “America’s Got Talent” victory. Because Thorn, a trans woman, is played with irresistible magnetism by the nightlife performer Jae W.B., it’s almost impossible not to back her.“Bruise & Thorn,” an eccentric new play by C. Julian Jiménez now being presented by Pipeline Theater Company at A.R.T./New York Theaters, gives the character a chance to freestyle, vogue and charm her way into the audience’s heart.Never mind that her cousin Bruise (a very appealing Fernando Contreras) has to hold down the fort at the laundromat where they both work while Thorn dreams up her speedy liberation. Saving up for his own aspirations of culinary school, Bruise’s tender gay heart must make room for Old Fart (Lou Liberatore, very funny), the homeless man he allows to rest in the laundromat bathroom, and his demanding boss, Mrs. Gallo (a fiery Zuleyma Guevara), who’s roped him into her cockfighting racket.Hanging outside is Lizard (Carson Fox Harvey), a sketchy figure who dangles his commitment to Thorn on the condition she drop the in-between-ness of her identity — it’s implied she sometimes uses he/him pronouns to appease him — and live as a man. Lizard’s character is not as thoroughly realized as the rest, perhaps by design, to keep him an enigma, but his ratty plaid boxers convey more than enough. (Costumes are by Saawan Tiwari.)On top of its well-realized performances, “Bruise & Thorn” counts a memorable authenticity among its best qualities; the work is very queer, very Latinx, very New York City. Filled with hip-hop, impromptu duckwalks and loving shade, Jiménez’s humor is performed with contagious enthusiasm by his two leads. At the start of the play, when the characters’ personalities are being introduced, it is almost impossible to believe W.B. and Contreras did not compose the material themselves, they inhabit it so naturally.Mixing resourcefulness with playfulness, the production eschews realism for gay fantasia; Sasha Schwartz’s laundromat set looks like a McDonald’s playground designed for the Teletubbies. Multicolored splotches adorn the floors, with washers and dryers and multipurpose cardboard boxes that lend a fitting oddball charm to the final scenes: a series of drag ball competitions representing cockfights (with the birds fabulously played by androgynous dancers) and a climactic argument between the two cousins.Once the balls are introduced, Jiménez’s play becomes even less interested in realism, employing fantasy as a literal way of getting these characters out of their situations. It can feel like a bit of a narrative cop-out — I’m still not sure how, exactly, some of these plot threads are resolved — but the scenes are satisfying enough to wash away most concerns.These flights of fancy are fundamental to the play’s queerness, but Jesse Jou’s unhurried direction drains momentum from the characters’ risky decisions. Whereas the initial hangout scenes let the cast’s whip-smart comic delivery and charisma dictate their pace, the tenser ones later on are allowed too many pauses, too much scoffing and hesitation, as if to telegraph gravity through passivity.Jiménez is smart in not promising more than this lighthearted play can handle when it comes to the ideas of gender, identity and class it evokes. For all their dreaming, “Bruise & Thorn” knows exactly how to stay woke.Bruise & ThornThrough March 27 at Mezzanine Theater at A.R.T./New York Theaters, Manhattan; pipelinetheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. More