Last week we saw the West Coast Premier of Sam Shepard's new play Eyes for Consuela. Actually you might say this was the premier of the revised play. The Manhattan Theatre Club presented the play in the original two act version last season. The play has now been revised to an 85-minute one act version and has been tighten considerably since it premiered in New York.

Based on a short story by Octavo Paz, Eyes for Consuela is the tale of American Henry and Mexican Armando. Both are heartsick about their wives. Both like tequila and are susceptible to fevered dreams.

The play is about their encounter in a remote Mexican jungle village. Armando is in search of blue eyed visitors. When he finds them, he claims, he cuts out their eyes and delivers them as tribute to Consuela.

Armando takes Henry captive in his boarding house room overnight and he is convinced that Henry has blue eyes. Henry in turn insists that his eyes are brown. We see Consuela only briefly, a mythic wraith in a beautiful blue dress.

The play is metaphorical and we see the motivations of these two characters. It basically a thesis of U.S.-Mexico cultural, political tensions and variations on the obsession and possessiveness that some call love.

Henry has fled to this jungle village to hide from himself, particularly from the fact that his wife of 20 years has left and moved to Michigan. Unfortunately there is not much dramatic juice here. The characters are hamstrung by Shepard's undernourished plot and self-conscious dialogue. There are spots in which Henry is talking about his past life with his wife; this has nothing to do with the movement of the play. The play leaves too much unexplained and unexplored about these two men to make an audience care.

Bob Ernest plays Henry. He delivered a deftly multi-layered performance of anxiety and personal blindness, fear and outrage as we are drawn deeply into his own story. Richard Coca portrays Armando in a swaggering role. However, his hawk-like focus on Henry's eyes has too many repeated ocular showdowns. It seems to go nowhere. Zoe Galvez and Cesar Fores round out the small cast.

The set by Christopher Acebo eschews realism. It place Henry's room in a spartan room afloat and tilted at a disconcerting angle in a jungle dreamscape. The minimal furnishings contrast with the oversized leaves of green, painted jungle backdrop. The play does shine more brightly here at the Magic than it did in New Yor,k but is still in need of improvement.

- Richard Connema

I know that Richard is the resident critic for the San Francisco region but he was too embarrassed to go see this show so I told him I would write a few words. As you will realize if you do not by now, I will go anywhere and see practically any kind of theatre. Jeff Stryker is a very popular adult film star and many of his films have been set in prisons. He is very popular due to his ... lets just say he is gifted. This is supposed to be his legitimate theatrical debut. The run is practically sold out and face it, no one is going expecting Hamlet as Jeff sure as hell cannot act.

Anyway, the show starts off with a variety of gay men in Cell Block 17, also known as Homo Central. It is occupied with a wide, stereotypical group of gay men -- Billy is the sensitive guy, Bruno is the big softy, Queenie is queenie, and Pretty Boy is the closet case. There are also two sadistic guards Michael and Herb. During this silly farce, if you can even call it that, almost all of the men had an obligatory nude shower scene and I must admit, they all look pretty good. And then, in walks Jeff. He has been arrested for indecent exposure for (surprise) dancing naked in an all-male theatre. He is thrown in a cell with one of the other inmates who unexpectedly becomes a recipient of Jeff's gifts. Pretty Boy beats up Queenie in the recreation room after Queenie makes one too many passes. Jeff catches Pretty Boy in the shower and rapes the guy. End of Act I.

Act two opens up with the now reformed Pretty Boy making up for lost time with Jeff under the covers. All the while, Queenie decides to put on a variety show for the inmates. He suckers, excuse the pun, Jeff into helping out. As this plays out, Pretty Boy becomes friends with Billy and comes to accept himself and Guard Michael tells Guard Herb that he is in love with him. The guards also agree to be in the show and on Guard Michael's suggestion, Guard Herb strips down for his obligatory nude scene and tries on leather chaps so that he can be the leather guy in a Village People number. I am not sure whether this show just got funnier or silly and stupider. One funny thing is I know Guard Herb. Well sort of. He use to work for my best friend's other half. It was strange seeing him on stage in this manner to say the least.

Jeff's part in the variety show gets underway with him coming out in all his glory, flapping his gifts all over the place. He poured an entire bottle of baby oil over himself, rubbed it in and then danced all over the stage. He then jumped out into the audience and danced in front of the first row and then up each of the side aisles. He came within 12 inches of me and let me tell you, I saw EVERYTHING. It was funny that some of the guys in the audience leaned far back in their seats as if to say, no gifts, please! I kept thinking that this must be what those all-male theatres must be like, as I've never been to one. There were even a few lesbians in the place and Jeff offered himself to them as well. Their expressions were priceless although a few friends who work in video stores say that lesbians just love his videos. Go figure.

The whole thing ends on a stupid note. In fact, the show just stops. While the play has a few really funny moments and lots of gay subtext and in-jokes, the structure is really out of whack. Some of the scene changes just did not work and the timing was off. Mind you, no one was there seemed to care. No matter how bad one could call it, the show was far from boring.

You have until 07-Mar to catch it. It then goes on tour to Miami, Chicago, New York and Europe though I'm not sure of the exact order.

Cheers,
Rodney