Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival

Of bullies and Bill Shakespeare

LEWIS WHITTINGTON

The Tricky Part

Martin Moran took a break from his current run in Spamalot on Broadway for a one-night performance of his stage memoir, The Tricky Part, at Philadelphia’s fourth Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival. The play has been nominated for several awards and is on a limited tour coinciding with the release of Moran‘s book of the same name.

Moran utilizes engaging anecdotes to take his audience on an unflinching journey into the heart of darkness of his past as a sexually abused adolescent who eventually confronts his abuser, a counselor at a Catholic camp (albeit 30 years later, when the man is ill and convicted). His confusion about growing up Catholic with sissyboy tendencies gives way to hilarious vignettes about trying to please the nuns and priests, his coming of age as a regular guy with the neighborhood bully and his burgeoning secret life as a gay teen.

Solo actor shows can be tough going. Even if the performer is blessed with multiple characters, comic routines and the wit of a raconteur, ten minutes in things can get tired. No such worries here: Even if Moran seems to sidetrack himself with back-stories of the minor people in his life, it’s all for a reason.

As Moran describes his first seduction, it was “like I was being swallowed by another planet.” From that experience we learn how Moran’s life was changed, his behavior altered, his identity threatened. Despite that (or maybe because of it), he is today a successful actor in a loving gay relationship of 14 years.

Moran turns his story into a confessional of his acceptance of a theocracy that played mind games with him. In effect he transubstantiates pain into forgiveness in he best Catholic tradition. Moran may be a good Catholic boy to the end, but The Tricky Part convincingly demonstrates that he’s no martyr to the Church’s conspiracy of silence on sexual abuse.

Naked Will

Blair Fell’s Naked Will is one of those rare works about writers that actually say something new about the creative process. The mystery behind Shakespeare’s poetic muse instigates a robust farce that unfolds under the aesthetic trappings of Oscar Wilde, who first posed the theory that W.H., to whom the Bard’s sonnets are dedicated, was a young travesti actor in Shakespeare’s plays as well as Shakespeare’s secret lover.

Fell’s witty academic repartee and Jennifer MacMillan’s crisp direction of a well-tuned ensemble were further highlighted by inventive blocking that bordered on choreography. MacMillan used Studio 5’s modest facilities so well that its cramped walls seemed to disappear.

MacMillan also added broad physical business, like having two character search for something à la the Keystone Cops, and vaudevillian vulgarity that fit perfectly into the backstage cannoodling of Elizabethan actors. At one point MacMillan has Shakespeare and his muse surrender to their passion as Wilde lamely tries to distract our attention with limp repartee. Daniel Robaire as Shakespeare sang the sonnets well in the midst of domestic dialogue, and Adam R. Deremer as the cockney “dumb boy actor” William Hughs, handled his wigs and corsets like a tranny truck driver. Both were unexpected and inspired characterizations.