No Strings (Attached)
Written and performed by Sunny Drake, directed by Gein Wong. Until March 26 at Buddies in Bad instances, 12 Alexander St. Buddiesinbadtimes and
Before you enter Buddies in Bad Times’ Cabaret area, an usher lovingly hands that you flower. But just as you’re through the entranceway, another usher confiscates it and arms that you button that says, “1 Min Romance Sober.”
This is basically the setup to Sunny Drake’s one-man show about dating and intimacy in queer and trans communities. The piece occurs within the fictional framework of a “Romance-aholics” conference, with Drake playing Jimmy, a filmmaker and activist torn between their modern politics along with his obsession with love that is old-fashioned. He addresses the audience as other Romance-aholics, telling us tales of their past relationships and getting together with video variations of himself.
The idea at first comes down as a little cutesy, but this will be quickly cut through because of the cleverness associated with the writing and of Gein Wong’s way, and also by the adult that is no-holds-barred regarding the content. Within a few minutes, Drake as Jimmy is miming extremely gymnastic intimate jobs while launching himself to your audience as an “Effeminate-Queer-Pansy-NonMonogamous-SparklyPrincess-SomewhatSluttyKinky-Transsexual-Man.”
Through the show Jimmy narrates their battle to navigate the crazy West of today’s dating scene. A number of the challenges he faces are specific to their identification as trans: he defines exactly just what he calls “the Craigslist meltdown,” when someone he meets online can’t handle the disconnect between their male sex presentation along with his genitalia, that are nevertheless fundamentally feminine (though Jimmy, because . But there is additionally one thing for anybody who’s got tried to navigate culture that is hookup staying enthusiastic about “the types of dating where you, like, talk and stuff.”
Drake is a really attractive performer: he plainly has exemplary real theater training and an extraordinary ability become emotionally present while delivering layered storytelling, for which he constantly moves between figures and circumstances. It is facilitated by affordable set design by Joe Pagnan: a seat, a couple of white draperies, and a dummy upon which the impressive videos (by Wong, Laura Warren, Alex Williams and Hisayo Horie) are projected.
Jimmy, it emerges, is still pretty hung through to their ex Brian, but this leads to him no end of angst because their politics simply tell him that their wish to have a monogamous relationship is incorrect on a variety of amounts: it is a cave-in to heterosexual values and section of a capitalist tradition of possession.
Although the jokes and also the multimedia that is clever couples web cam (live excerpts from a thought truth tv program involving a gathering volunteer; a funny-scary movie sequence called the “Monogamy Police”) fly thick and fast, Drake lands topical points concerning the challenges of residing ethically in some sort of by which one person’s liberation can certainly play a role in another’s oppression.
The show’s twist that is final Jimmy arriving at terms using the supply of their lifelong insecurity and narcissism, the truth that produces feeling of the utilization of paint-stained bed linens as key props throughout. A puppet makes a belated and entrance that is memorable exposing just one more of Drake’s theatrical abilities. While this series results in as deeply believed and honest to Jimmy’s (and presumably, Drake’s) experience, it actually leaves the show a distance from the initial premise and verges in the indulgently healing.
This show, made by Pink Pluto and ultimate Ashes, toured to numerous nations before landing at Buddies, where Australian-born Drake has become manager associated with emerging creators’ device. Along side Gertrude and Alice into the Buddies’ mainspace it provides another valuable viewpoint on the experiences of queer communities — with a number of laughs and insights as you go along.