San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
‘Queer response’ to masterpiece of proto-modernism
Georg Büchner’s play “Woyzeck,” left unfinished when he died in 1837, is a series of fragments with jagged edges. The fires of working-class revolution are ready to explode just below its surface; all the pushed-around title character needs is a spark.
Sylvan Oswald’s “Pony,” now in a Cutting Ball Theater production, bills itself as a “queer response” to Büchner’s proto-modernist classic. When trans man Pony (Fenner Frank Merlick) and Marie ( Julie Kuwabara) first meet down by the river, Marie has a knife. But danger here is sexy. There’s something mysterious, something offbeat in the air, and Oswald’s lean, flinty dialogue keeps ratcheting up the stakes without laying its cards on the table.
— Lily Janiak
“Pony”: 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13; 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Oct. 14-15. Through Nov. 13. $10-$95. Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor St., S.F. 415-525-1205. http:// cuttingball.com