Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
Oakland Theater Project at FLAX art & design
1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland 94612
Through Oct. 1, 2023
General Admission $28-$38
Blood, poop, and penises make for a damn good time in Oakland Theater Project’s bawdy and endearing production of Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus by Taylor Mac. Mac’s vision of the aftermath of Shakespeare’s desolate final curtain sends in a clown, a maid, and a midwife to deal with the gory carnage. I mean, somebody has to clean up the bodies and messy viscera, right?
It’s a lousy chore, especially because there’s the threat that the clean-up crew could become one of the many cadavers they must dispose of: a reality they cope with not only practically, but in a deeper sense.
Emilie Whelan directs this Bay Area premiere of Mac’s Tony nominated 2019 Broadway play at the tiny Oakland Theater at FLAX art & design. The sets are a chaotic assemblage of the grotesque: plastic sheeting where numerous corpse parts are semi-visible (and where numerous dildos poke through), rubber-and-fabric bodies, blood-red curtains and bunting; even a small, tongue-in-cheek light-up ‘applause’ sign. But the immediate effect is comically grim, and the rough-hewn backdrops are a perfect foil for the performers’ dramatic art.
Suspension of disbelief is given to the audience straightaway: one is encouraged to use their imagination to see the story in its completeness. (Although flatulent sound effects, dripping blood, and the mistaken ingestion of poop are included. Bonus!)
Gary aspires to be a Fool, not just a clown. After all, Fools at court have the potential to make change. Gary, played by Jomar Tagatac, speaks in a Cockney accent and in rhyming couplets. He envisions a new world of egalitarianism— “a fooling” as he calls it — wishing to upend and remake the savage butchery and thereby save the world.
Janice, a maid played by Matt Standley, also speaks in Cockney as she prepares bodies for proper disposal by forcibly causing them to fart out their gasses and draining them of their fluids using a crude pump she primes by sucking on it as though it were siphon. She’s less hopeful than Gary and shoots down his idealism with jaded quips. Gary accuses Janice of merely cleaning-up and making pleasant the violence that always lurks. And thus the two go back-and-forth with philosophical banter until we meet Carol, midwife to Tamora’s baby in Titus Andronicus who has somehow survived having her throat slit. Played by Regina Morones, Carol’s bloody neck and shrieking voice are delightfully funny. She bolsters support for Gary’s idea for his “Fooling” (“A performance of a surprise,” as he says) despite Janice’s doubtfulness and fear at being executed for such an audaciously optimistic plan.
Although I’m not a big fan of audience participation in performances, there’s quite a bit in Gary, especially toward the play’s end. But the breaking of the fourth wall in this case mostly works (although there’s a questionable choice in the final scene). A head toss, a love song and a “sword” fight — amongst other engagements—do involve viewers and take them into the thematic hopefulness of the play and into Gary’s “Fooling.” And in so doing brings the deeper meaning of what it means to turn bloodshed into art not only to our passive selves, but actively, too.
So be a Fool and help clean up this funny and beautiful slaughter!
