Pick of the Week
Best Solo Performance of the Year
LA Weekly Award Nominee
Straight Up With a Twist
Adroitly sidestepping the overweening egotism generally lurking in autobiographical solo performances, Paul Stroili delivers a richly comic, self-effacing investigation into his identity as a straight man possessing, as his shrink puts it, “the social and aesthetic sensibilities of an arrogant homosexual.” His mother Charlotte, a Bronx native of German extraction, chain-smokes while lamenting the hybrid nature of her obsessive-compulsive son. Dad Bruno, a soft-spoken Italian, lives in fear that his boy is in fact gay, while older brother John the jock looks on in amusement. At ease onstage, Stroili lets loose some zinger lines. Charlotte’s menthol cigarettes are like “smoking a Glade plug-in,” and Stroili himself suggests his German-Italian heritage might explain the temperament of anyone “very passionate in their need to control the world.” Directed by Bill Penton, with frequent 70s and 80s pop-culture references, Stroili’s tale emerges as an ode to men who read Steinem and Freidan, only to watch the subjects of their pursuit choose to “fuck the rugby player.” Stroili might have lost any number of women to Neanderthals, but here, at least, he cultivates an audience who will understand his peculiar plight. (Location has changed) Tamarind Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave. Thursdays through Saturday at 8pm, Sundays at 7pm – Through October 29th
