The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013 (Review No. 2)

Indigo Rael (poster: Capital T Theatre)

by Michael Meigs

Let's get right down to that title. The expletive noun is one of the most offensive combinations in the English language, and many of us get a sharp visceral twinge seeing it used in the title of Guirgis's play. The noun and variants of its subsidiary combinant verb are also among the most common oral expressions in the English language, especially in American parlance.

Words are powerful, especially when they evoke taboos. Publications and individuals may try to exorcise personal responsibility for using them -- or even knowing them -- by altering them into recognizable euphemisms. MoFo, used in a recent Tweet by an admired young Austin director, probably percolated up from American ghettos of poverty. Fug was foisted upon Norman Mailer's 1949 The Naked and the Dead by editors at Andre Deutsch's Allen Wingate press. The doughty men and women of the television series Battlestar Galactica were allowed to say frack. One happy chant of a star marching band of a high school in coastal Virginia has long been "We don't drink! Nor smoke! Norfolk! Norfolk!"


Playwright Guirgis, a successful screenwriter, probably intended to provoke with that title, one that still can't be mentioned in broadcasts without a beep or printed in most general-circulation publications without a couple of asterisks applied like pasties on a pole dancer's most prominent delights.

Indigo Rael, J. Ben Wolfe (photo: Capital T. Theatre)

But this story takes place entirely within the hard pressed underclass of an outlying borough of New York City. The characters struggle with alcoholism, drugs, crime and one another, and the expletives and taboo speech authenticate the milieu for us. If you're bothered by the title on the poster, give this one a miss, because that's the language used throughout the play by the protagonist and others. Their coarse speech assumes a music and rhythm of its own; one becomes inured to the literal meaning of the obscenities. Guirgis conveys intensely complex meanings and feelings in that impoverished speech.


People talk like that. Not just those in the underclass, of course -- those words are probably applied with a shade more imagination in many a locker room across the country, and I recall the slight uneasiness I experienced when I heard one of my grown children regularly using the "f-word" (yet another euphemism) without a trace of self-consciousness.


Mark Pickell's Capital T company and their sponsor, Ken Webster's Hyde Park Theatre, have a sharply defined taste for the type of theatre commonly termed edgy or dark. For lack of a better classification, many a reviewer would probably say they're dealing in black humor. These are stories with cynical twists, peopled with characters that are sharply drawn and often obsessive. We thank God that we don't have their flaws.


Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . . 

The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013 (Review No. 1)

by Dr. David Glen Robinson

Capital T Theatre’s production of The Motherfucker with the Hat (TMFWTH) by Stephen Adly Guirgis fairly screamed “exploitation!” in its promise,-- or rather, warning -- of foul language and nudity. As usual , the reality escaped the hype in unpredictable ways. TMFWTH was a far more serious play than its unfortunate title suggested.

The story of TMFWTH was fairly direct. Jackie (W. Ben Wolfe) comes home to the apartment he shared with his love, Veronica (Indigo Rael), after having found a job, difficult to do as a recent parolee from prison upstate. Before Jackie and Veronica begin their weekend-long celebration, Jackie finds another man’s hat in the apartment, and it hadn't been there that morning when he left. The recriminations are lengthy and end with Jackie leaving.

J. Ben Wolfe, Indigo Rael (photo: Capital T Theatre)

The story looked like a tale of revenge at that point, but in fact it changed quickly into a larger tale of the struggle for life in the worst of circumstances , amidst a shifting mosaic of sobriety and addiction. It could have become a sex farce, but the sexual situations were anything but farcical. The other on-stage characters were Ralph (Aaron Alexander), Victoria (Antoinette Robinson) and Cousin Julio (Rommel Sulit).


As is often the case in Austin theatre, the nudity in the show was all male. Bulky, covering underwear on women does not count. But contrary to expectation, the brief showe of bare skin was anything but gratuitous; instead, the revelation (ha!) sharply pivoted the plot.


The foul language in the play merely reflected the street patois of Latino and other ethnic sections of New York City, and playwright Stephen Adly Giurgis revealed a keen ear for spoken language. The script, however, taught no lessons beyond this one. The semantic potential of cursing in literary forms can go much further than this, however. The uses of billingsgate in drama were explored and workshopped in editions of Breaking String Theatre's New Russian Drama Festival last year and earlier this year. There, it was made clear that cursing can open deeper levels in the minds and personalities of characters. Not so here.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Photoshoot: The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013

Photo shoot for posters for the

presentation of

Indigo Rael, J. Ben Wolfe (photo: Capital T)

The Motherfucker with the Hat

by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Directed by Carrie Klypchak

August 8 – 31, 2013

Thursday-Saturday at 8pm

Hyde Park Theatre 511 W 43rd St at Guadalupe - click for map

Things are looking up for recovering alcoholic Jackie and his girlfriend Veronica—until Jackie spots another man’s hat in their apartment and embarks on a sublimely incompetent quest for vengeance. Fast-paced and uproarious, Motherfucker is a gleefully foul-mouthed look at modern love and other addictions.

Capital T Theatre is proud to present the regional premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ outrageously funny and touching comedy directed by Cap T company member Carrie Klypchak starring Austin favorites Ben Wolfe (The Pain and the Itch), Indigo Rael (Exit, Pursued by a Bear), Antoinette Robinson (Mr. Marmalade), Rommel Sulit (Men of Tortuga) and Aaron Alexander (Behanding in Spokane).

Antoinette Robinson (photo: Capital T)

Aaron Alexander (photo: Capital T)

UPDATE: Review by Jeff Davis at www.austin.broadwayworld.com, August 16

Click to view additional photos at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Video: The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre at the Hyde Park Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013

Video for the

presentation of

Indigo Rael (photo: Capital T Theatre)

The Motherfucker with the Hat

by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Directed by Carrie Klypchak

August 8th – 31st

Thursday-Saturday at 8
pm

Hyde Park Theatre 511 W 43rd St at Guadalupe - click for map






Things are looking up for recovering alcoholic Jackie and his girlfriend Veronica—until Jackie spots another man’s hat in their apartment and embarks on a sublimely incompetent quest for vengeance. Fast-paced and uproarious, Motherfucker is a gleefully foul-mouthed look at modern love and other addictions.

Capital T Theatre is proud to present the regional premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ outrageously funny and touching comedy directed by Cap T company member Carrie Klypchak starring Austin favorites Ben Wolfe (The Pain and the Itch), Indigo Rael (Exit, Pursued by a Bear), Antoinette Robinson (Mr. Marmalade), Rommel Sulit (Men of Tortuga) and Aaron Alexander (Behanding in Spokane).

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

THE MOTHERFUCKER WITH THE HAT by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013

[performing at the Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St. at Guadalupe -- click for map ]


presents

Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St. at Guadalupe - click for map

 

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Theatre Arts Organization at Howson Hall, Unitarian Universalist Church, March 22 - 31

Theatre Arts Organization

presents

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

by Stephen Adly Guirgis
directed by Rod Porter

March 22-31 - 7:30pm
Thursdays-Fridays

at Howson Hall Theatre, 4700 Grover Avenue, Austin, TX 78756 (click for map)

Tickets available at the door- $15 Students / UU Members | $ 20 General Admission | $10 Groups of 10

Set in a time-bending, seriocomically imagined world between Heaven and Hell, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot brings witnesses such as a foul-mouthed St. Monica, Mother Teresa, Pontius Pilate, and many of Jesus' disciples to the courtroom of Judge Littlefield for questioning forgiveness, mercy, damnation and truth with provocative and hilarious examinations and testimonies. WARNING: Strong language and adult content

CAST: Jon Richardson, Josean Rodriguez, Vanessa Marroquin, Jordan Cooper, Matt Frazier, Kenny Dolin, Hannah McClellan, Benjamin Myers, Lindsley Howard, Leslie Turner, Cameron Allen, Meredith Montgomery, Michael Balagia & Taylor Read

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Royal Pretenders at the Sam Bass Community Theatre, August 19 - 29

. . or, perhaps, The Road to Salvation as imagined by Bart Simpson.


The setting is a clichéd and unfunny take on the Day of Judgment, the plot's a mess, the characters are mostly caricatures, and The Last Days of Judas Iscariot was LONG -- close to three hours, including one intermission.


A brilliant and moving play was hiding inside this mess, one that came clear in the concluding scenes, after the grunge and cuteness had been burned away.


One had the impression that Stephen Adly Guirgis set out to write a stand-up comedy routine about the afterlife and just couldn't bear to discard any of the many characters that occurred to him along the way.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . .