tebruary 2 1 .2ÛQ3
of Mark. Joe Healy also impresses as the
Mephistophelean Brian, equally convincing cry
ing one minute and grandstanding the next.
R
just spit, Mark doesn’t seem to notice Gary’s
extreme pain and is mesmerized by the details:
“Does he spit up you?’ Mark’s extended anec
dote about meeting Fergie in a men’s restroom
is one of the show’s high points.
Brian, the drug dealer, hovers over these
wretches like an authoritarian father, alternately
emhracing and assaulting them. His shtick is
peculiar, to say the least, a mix of impassioned
philosophizing (he defends money as the ultimate
mark of civilization) and teary responses to the
fleeting beauty of life, most sharply seen in a sur
prisingly poignant moment where he shows Lulu
and Robbie a video of his son playing the cello.
Lulu has an equally poignant moment that
shows Shopping has a heart as well as a brain.
Forced to strip for Brian during the alleged audi
tion to prcwe she’s an actress, she recites a passage
from Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya that mesmerizes.
On the other hand, Ravenhill pulls no
punches here, and the
play is not for the faint
hearted. Mark and Gary’s
relationship is one of the
most troubling elements
(and one that has been
heavily censored in some
productions around the
world). Blcxxly sex and
brutal rape are apparently
inescapable in these rela
tionships, and the pro
duction doesn’t shy away
from the details.
triangle’s staging of
this difficult material as
a series of stark
vignettes maximizes the
emotional intensity,
with two areas intermit
tently highlighted on a
simple set.
Performances are
uniformly excellent. As Lulu, Val Landrum has
a staccato intensity, showing equal power in the
quiet moments and the emotional eruptions.
Chris Murray nails the confused Robbie from
the opening scene, and he’s especially strong
during a long and tricky speech recounting the
Ecstasy fiasco.
Gay actor Michael Teufel, familiar from
many productions around town, shows serious
chops in the demanding role of Mark. He beau
tifully captures a character who clings to rehab
clichés in the face of uncontrollable emotions.
Gabe Carleton-Barnes has what may be the
most difficult role— that of the twink who longs
for self-destruction. He deserves praise for pulling
this off, particularly when he breaks down in front
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Mark seeks solace in teen-age rent boy Gary
avenhill, who’s gay and HIV-positive, has
created a play in which the sexuality of the
characters is shifting, not fixed, and its cri
tique is not so much of the gay community—
though there are elements of that— as of a
world that commodifies and brutalizes all it
touches, irrespective of orientation.
Staging Shopping was difficult because of the
play’s complexity and rawness, hut it was not a
difficult choice, says director Don Horn. “1 have
never backed down from gritty or darker the
ater,” he says. “Here was a play that had a point,
made me think and had a voice that I didn’t
hear many times with scripts that I read.”
About the charge in some quarters that it’s
simply a collection of negative gay stereotypes,
he asserts, “Our community must wise up and
realize there are more people out there than
those who go to Starbucks, Pottery Bam and
live ‘the gtxxl life.’ All of us shop and fuck.”
As for getting actors to hare their souls phys
ically and psychically, Horn says he “had no
problem finding committed actors and tech
people who were willing to tackle this play. In
fact, they were excited about the material. The
ater isn’t only to ‘enjoy,’ but to experience.”
Teufel certainly found the project an experi
ence. “This is a tough play with difficult emo
tional content,” he says, “and those challenges
are always the most exciting for me."
This won’t he a revelation to those who
witnessed Teufel in Stark Raving Theatre’s
production of After the Zipper, in which he
played a young man overcome with his own
homophobia. “ I very much enjoy portraying
people that are as nutty and out of control as
the real me— that part of me that society says
is ‘not O * K .’ "
During the prtKess of getting to know Mark,
the actor found himself able to relate to the
character’s motivations, “but his actions are so
| extreme it is pretty much
g playing the reverse of what
3 and who 1 truly am.”
|
Preparation for this
| edgy, sexually over-the-top
ji role was also dicey, and
Teufel marshaled just
about every trick in the
actor’s hag, from sheer
immersion to “sense mem
ory,” which is, he explains,
figuring out how “the
sights, sounds, smells and
tactile stimulus that are
going on in a scene” make
him feel.
“Ravenhill has a
wicked sense of humor,”
he adds. “I was not really
ready for the laughs I get. I
get quite a lot of laughs at
moments that are excruci
ating for me, personally. I wonder if it’s the
script or is it me squirming— or a marriage of
the two? Or maybe it’s that ‘uncomfortable’
laugh people do.7”
This kind of immediacy and intense
engagement takes its toll on the actors— you
can see their exhaustion during the curtain
call— hut pays off for audiences hungry for
strong theater. |H!