| Among other things, a deep dive into two kinds of gay vernacular speech. THE HOT WING KING, the more substantive play, foregrounds southern black--Memphis specifically--gay argot. We don't often hear such talk in the theatre and, while it's often difficult to parse, it's remarkable. The play, about African-American gay experience, is wildly entertaining and often just as surprising. Hall has managed to get a world onto the stage that's been in the wings too long. The men here are caustic, of course, but also entirely affecting. Their relationships with one another are sharp and deep. The men in HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOUG--all depicted by Drew Droege, a terrific mimic--are more superficially bound. They mostly prattle about nothing, merrily misgendering one another as a form of spiky endearment. There's no real play here, but Droege captures what's funny and sad about the anxiety of influence. These men crave recognition though they barely recognize themselves. Because they can only find external solutions for internal problems, they're lost to themselves and, unlike the men in THE HOT WING KING, they aren't recovered and grounded by community. Both plays are good examples of how the language of oppression is regularly co-opted and reconvened: hate speech becomes a language of love. |
