Review: The Motherfucker with the Hat by Capital T Theatre
by 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 (J. 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.
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 show 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.
Another aspect of language was handled far less adroitly. Some of the cast used the inflections and figures of speech, even some Creole, of ethnic New York. Rommel Sulit as Cousin Julio, was a spectacular success in using a character voice and accents. Some others in the cast used standard theatre English as taught in drama departments. The discrepancy was discordant in the extreme, and I was never able to overlook (overhear?) it. The rule I learned long ago was that either the entire cast learns and uses an accent, or none of them do so. Mixing the two approaches was considered an error.
The design fields supported the story. The set design, dealing with the confines of Hyde Park Theatre, had to convey three apartments in New York, with setting changes cued by the lighting. Veronica’s apartment occupied stage left, Ralph’s apartment occupied stage right, and Cousin Julio’s home was represented stage center by the tiny kitchen table. Julio’s entrances and exits were through the house instead of through the doors on stage. The set concept was clever, but it didn’t really work. When Ralph’s set was up, the house rght audience had to peer through the obscured stage furniture of Veronica’s set. The opposite situation was less difficult, but only the house center audience could enjoy the full set design concept. The problem here was that in the awkward inherited configuration of the audience space, the center of the house rear wall with the lighting booth juts forward like a ship’s prow. The house center space accommodates only about ten to fifteen patrons for the optimal sightlines to benefit fully from the set.
The actors played gamely through the difficulties. Ralph emerged as a deeply conflicted character who gained no resolution. On one hand, he was unapologetic about his own infidelities regardless of the manifest harm done, even as violent retribution bore down on him. “It doesn’t matter,” he stated repeatedly. To him, sex and relationships were baseline activities of animal existence. On the other hand, Ralph’s continued sobriety (and no one else’s) was of supreme and spiritual value to him; it was unshakeable in the midst of his own abusive behavior , even as all those around him were lapsing again into addictions. The inherent contradictions of this character are found frequently in life, and Guirgis's highlighting them is one of the kernels of insight of the play.
Jackie’s contradictions were mirror opposites of Ralph’s. Jackie’s earnest attempts at recovery failed miserably. He danced on the knife-edge of violence throughout the play. Almost all of his actions were parole violations, but he was very open about his self-centeredness and seemed oddly to respect everyone whom he threatened violence. Most remarkably, he respected Veronica, and clung to a sacred love and desire for her through incarceration and myriad missteps and imperfections. “Love conquers all” is the phrase for Jackie --and it certainly conquered him. Cousin Julio's vivid story about smoking marijuana with Jackie for the first time pat the age of eleven proved this eloquently.
Veronica, a drug addict, was an inadequate vessel for Jackie’s love, and she never, ever had a clue of what she already had in Jackie. She was a prostitute in everything but the money-taking part of it. ‘Nuff said about Veronica.
The acting of J. Ben Wolfe as Jackie illuminated an already fairly brilliant play. Wolfe can rage like a thunderstorm but never forget the subtle rustling of the leaves on the trees all around the storm. He raised the dome of his head upward and flicked his eyelids once or twice, and in that brief silence conveyed the agony of the immensely complex Jackie. And of course he didn’t stop there. Wolfe is an incredible gift to Austin theatre.
Ultimately, the play is about people trapped in poverty without hope of escape, for whom the illusion of success is buying a refrigerator that makes ice cubes. Playwright Guirgis has drawn from life -- especially, I feel, in regard to the character of Cousin Julio. The play's insights emerge from the struggles of ethnic minorities, and the New York playwright definitely owes thanks to several NYC neighborhoods.
Capital T Theatre, highly regarded in Austin for its excellent and innovative work, suffered some creative drain while attempting to overcome the challenges in a restrictive venue. A couple of powerful actors mostly compensated, to fulfill the promise of a truly good and insightful play. Capital T didn’t quite make it, but I’d like to see someone take another stab at it.
The show runs through August 31st at Hyde Park Theatre in central Austin.
Review by Jeff Davis at www.austin.broadwayworld.com, August 16
EXTRAS
AustinLiveTheatre review by Michael Meigs, August 20
Capital T Theatre interview with director Carrie Klypchak, August 21
Click to view program for The Motherfucker with the Hat by Capital T Theatre
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The Motherfucker with the Hat
by Stephan Adly Guirgis
Capital T Theatre
August 08 - August 31, 2013
