Poetic script fuels powerful performances
‘Beats Around the Bush’ explores complicated life paths of four gay couples
When Graham Hunt, producer of “Beats Around the Bush, characterized the play as “like Shakespeare with a fresh twist of Hollywood,” I thought, now there’s a lofty goal.
Consequently, I was surprised to discover several soul-stirring moments when an extended soliloquy nearly achieves that goal.
The play is written by Riley Palanca, who is originally from Manila, and clearly has a flair for contemporary spoken word. It was wonderful to be swept up in the melody of the language and sentiment.
“Beats Around the Bush” wrapped its world premiere Saturday after a three-day run at The Factory in downtown St. John’s.
The play’s subtitle is “The Word Opera.” When I asked Palanca why he chose the term “opera,” he explained that when the characters are at their most passionate, when emotions were running high, it was like music to him.
Don’t be misled — it is not a musical. Opera refers more to the larger-than-life quality of the play and its characters.
And there are plenty of epic meltdowns, lovers’ quarrels and reunions between the millennial characters. If this is opera, it is the unconventional opera of the Beat Generation like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, who found creative riches in the shadowy underside of society.
For his St. John’s debut as playwright, Palanca has created a fictional setting called Malate based on the treacherous streets of Manila’s gay community.
The Factory’s interior, with its brick walls and rowdy street art, seamlessly take on the urban character. Stage lights bathe the actors in bright washes of hot oranges or moody blues, helping the audience to focus on the alternating speaking roles of monologue or soliloquy.
The central characters are four gay couples and the play deals with their complexities and issues. One man has a pregnant wife at home (“who glares at him like an anorexic looks at a buffet table); another has a violent partner — the list goes on.
Diversions abound. They are beating around the bush, avoiding answers and words like homophobia. But in dwelling on the specific the universal is uncovered.
Their stage world is Asian Malate, but it might as well be the tragic site of the Orlando shootings.
All eight of the cast held nothing back with their performances, but it will be the poetic script that I will remember most.
Streetwise but unschooled, Chance solicits Miguel to teach him how to write a poem. In response, we are treated to a parody of “it is a summer’s day” as if it was written in turn by Shakespeare, E.E. Cummings, Pablo Neruda, E.A. Poe, Ezra Pound, Kalil Gibran, Sylvia Plath — and those are just the ones I can recall.
Or achingly simple lines like, “I find my mother in crosswords, in cross stitch, in too much salt in my pasta, in the front row of my shows. …”
Beats Around the Bush: The Word Opera was presented by The Factory and Voices of Asia. Cast members were Jeremie Monette as Chance, Graham Hunt as Miquel, Lucas IngSimms as Joshua, Coley Hayley as Cassie, Michael Vokey as Red, Rob Monette as Ion, Justin Sellars as Dale and Elliot Barret as Art.