‘AMERICAN CINEMA’ IS FUNNY, TOUCHING STORY
90-minute play focuses on bond between widowed gay man and his teen stepson
In Christian St. Croix’s play “Monsters of the American Cinema,” the creatures from Hollywood’s horror classics era — like the Mummy, Frankenstein’s monster and Werewolf — both inhabit the script and decorate the walls at Diversionary Theatre.
But the real monsters in the San Diego playwright’s moving and cleverly written 90-minute drama aren’t film creatures. They’re us — violent homophobes, White supremacists, school bullies, abusive parents and an adolescent boy seeking an outlet for his grief-fueled rage.
I saw an earlier and shorter version of “Monsters” at the 2019 San Diego International Fringe Festival and was so touched by the uniqueness of the story and the relationship between its two characters that I gave it my critic’s choice award. Since then, “Monsters” has made its world premiere in Seattle and won several new awards. I’m not surprised. St. Croix is one of the nation’s fastest-rising playwrights, thanks to his ability to write multidimensional characters with wry humor and truth, as well as unique stories told from his perspective as a queer Black writer.
Seeing it again on Saturday in Diversionary’s newly remodeled, 50-seat, in-the-round Olin New Play Development Center, I was impressed by how St. Croix has deepened the characters’ backstories and layered in real historical events that give the story more immediacy. These include a violent gay-bashing in Hillcrest, the racist murders that triggered the Black Lives Matter protests and the Santee couple who went grocery shopping in swastika face masks in 2020.
Santee is the setting for the twocharacter play. Remy is a gay Black man in his 30s raising Pup, the White straight 16-year-old son of his late husband, Brian, who died from a drug overdose four years before. Together, Remy and Pup run the Good Time Drive-In, where Friday and Saturday nights are reserved for showing double features of classic horror movies.
Kirk Brown is a charismatic and funny leading man as Remy, a bighearted, morally centered man whose main vice is hiding his cigarette smoking from his stepson. And San Diego State freshman Nicholas Toscano, a newcomer to the professional stage, makes an impressive debut as Pup. There’s no artifice in his performance as the troubled teen, who encourages the bullying of a nonbinary student and uses racial slurs to impress his toxic male buddies.
Pup and Remy have sweetly bonded over Pup’s love for horror films, especially “The Creature from the Black Lagoon,” but that obsession has invaded Pup’s dreams, and in several scenes, the audience goes inside his nightmares, which are scary manifestations of his pain, fears and violent thoughts. These scenes are well-enhanced with spooky sound effects by Eliza Vedar, eerie lighting by Maxx McCartney and costumes by Jasz Bulan.
Director Desireé Clarke has worked with scenic designer Yi-Chien Lee to create an immersive drive-in theater environment, with popcorn boxes, a marquee, movie posters, white screens on the walls and strings of outdoor lights. Clarke has also created a chilling horror film environment as Pup battles his inner demons to reclaim his humanity.
Like many horror movie villains, Pup is a misunderstood, empathetic creature whose inner beast can be tamed by unconditional love. Most of the classic film monsters were never offered that lifeline, but Remy’s love for Pup bodes well for a possible happier ending.