Tuesday, January 17, 2006

The Stranger - Theater - Feature - On Stage:

Lord, spare us from awful art like Global SeXXX-ism: un-wrapped. The baroquely indulgent title is enough to curdle the stomach; the show itself is so bad, it almost defies description. And get this: The Conciliation Project got a $13,000 grant from the city's Neighborhood Matching Fund program to mount productions for local schools, which will only confirm the youngsters' suspicions that theater, like, totally blows.

Unlike finger-wagging parables by Baraka or Brecht, SeXXX-ism doesn't bother with characters or stories. Instead, this "ritual play" cuts straight to the politics with cartoonish clichés that insult our intelligence. If this is theater's response to social ills, it truly is a dead art form.

Exhibit A: Actors put signs around their necks that read "co-dependency," "addiction," or "abuse" and stumble around the stage, embodying addiction or co-dependency. Blech. B: The strip-club tableau, wherein three men attach long, inflatable phalli to their pants and hoot at a couple of automaton-woman pole dancers, who chant about their inner numbness and "calloused" vaginas.