Playwright: A. Rey Pamatmat. At: About Face Theatre at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. Tickets: 773-975-8150; www.aboutfacetheatre.org; $35. Runs through: April 10
I've done it myself, describing someone as swishy, nelly, girlie or "such a queen." I've met gay men with whom I would not want to be publicly associated because they are too faggoty. The production after all the terrible things I do addresses this rarely acknowledged rift between masculine and perceived-feminine gay behaviors, and the gay-on-gay bigotry that grows from it.
The play slowly reveals the secrets of Daniel ( Colin Sphar ), an athletic, straight-acting gay writer, and Linda ( Lisa Tejero ), owner of a bookstore in a Midwestern town. Recently out of college, Daniel comes home to live with his mother and finds work at the bookstore. As it develops, Daniel knew Linda's son in grade school, a delicate boy who even at eight years old was being bullied and abused. Daniel forced the boy, a year younger than him, to practice kissing when both still were pre-pubescent. Linda tells Daniel her son was in fact gay and came out to her early-on, but committed suicide at 17. She blames his death on anyone other than herself, even Daniel, who long before had moved away to live with his father when his folks divorced.
In time, audiences understand that Daniel is openly gay but self-loathing, unable to admit his attraction to men who are less masculine than he is. He became a closeted bully in high school and an abusive sex partner in college and beyond. For her part, Linda reveals her deeply-harbored guilt for wanting her son to deny who he was, and to change. "Your sexuality will be used against you," she warned him, slapping him across the face when he told her he wanted to kiss boys. "Forgiveness is a fantasy for both of us," Linda says late in the play, but Daniel and Linda forgive each other.
It takes time to dig into Daniel and Linda's psyches, which depends on various quasi-improbable factoids ( such as Linda knowing Daniel is gay because he likes Frank O'Hara poetry ). The play is positioned as a thriller rather than a slice-of-life drama, which allows Daniel and Linda to speak in literate, intelligent, grammatically correct sentences, unlike most contemporary plays or real life. Also, Linda is Filipina and there's indirect reference to the wide-spread Asian gay sub-culture which feminizes homosexuals, sometimes forcibly. The Pinoy connection isn't thematically essential, but is personal for Filipino-American playwright Pamatmat.
Sphar and Tejero play big under director Andrew Volkoff and tear into this chewy material, powering through the play's coincidences. Tejero channels every dragon lady role she's played into stiletto-sharp attack, always cagey and sometimes ferocious. Sphar, superficially a blander character, parries each thrust and rises to Tejero's considerable energy level. They comfortably inhabit Chelsea M. Warren's cozy, perfect bookstore set.
