Sexing Hitler
Sexing Hitler, Bryan Colley and Tara Varney’s lovely, eccentric drama pertains to the Third Reich’s use and abuse of sex dolls, or, “inflatable pleasure dolls” as it were. In 1941, Nazis are supposedly losing soldiers to death via venereal disease; persona non grata, Heinrich Himmler (Andy Garrison) has to put a halt to this thriving soldier-escort business. What a bloody shame. The Nazi invention of a sex doll is ostensibly found in a study, Mussolini’s Barber; it is sensational material for a drama, but this mythos is not primarily about a sex doll. It’s ambitious and substantive, and the subplot-subtext explores several Platonic-Christian items amid contemptible, nefarious Nazi philosophies.
Director Varney applies three metadramatic points; metadrama properly defined is drama about drama: The German band announces both “prologue” and “epilogue”; The Doll can be seen changing attire; and Himmler’s wacky professions to the U.S. audience, excepting his facts about Jim Crow and the Native American holocaust.
No “sexting” or Sexing Hitler, or Hitler actually. One does witness Himmler. Speaking of The Doll (Amy Hurrelbrink), her agility, athleticism, and dance technique are matchless; as Himmler’s mistress, Hurrelbrink is underused – despite her Eva Braun-esque devout fanaticism and hilarious birth to sublime Aryan Barbie. The bromides are needless—that the promoter of “The Pill” Sanger favored eugenics, for instance.
The core incipiently comments on truth, beauty, goodness — a la Plato’s Symposium. Senta Schneider, designer, (Marcie Ramirez) and her boy toy focus on beauty, humanity, and alas, fall in love. Is a doll human, however sexy and comely? Brilliant notion, but the lovers enact a silly, repressed tedium, save for “adventure” as a euphemism for copulation. Himmler’s lecturing about Nazi ideology suggests Platonic-Christian goodness — in part influenced by The Church of Rome: sexism, racialism, utopianism, imperialism, hierarchicalism, anti-gay, anti-foreign bigotry. A mindful production, but it entails too many platitudes and a mediocre, predictable romance.
Ice Cream Social . . . Issues
Using the false pretense of an ice cream social to hold an intervention, family members led by Pat (Manon Halliburton) put on a dysfunctional mess. Sister playwrights Natalie and Talie Liccardello — using the false pretense of an intervention — comically comment on the failed U.S. Drug War, though they get their facts wrong. Manon Halliburton basically re-interprets the superlative drug-addled character of Violet Weston in August: Osage County, but here she is on a benzodiazepine, and she doesn’t have cancer. Father figure Pop Pop (Ari Bravel) drinks whiskey like a fish; two youngish female family members have a grand old time with marijuana, and, of course, also eat up most of the ice cream. The actors all excel, specifically Halliburton.
Directors Natalie Liccardello and Warren Deckert do a fine job pointing out the patent tartuffery with respect to drugs: the American demand for drugs is, well, rather high; and therefore such demand only reinforces various cartels, not to mention arms trafficking — from America to Mexico. Furthermore, the majority of Americans use or abuse chemicals, whether it be crack, caffeine, or cream. That said, cannabis will not kill you, it has credible medicinal use, and it is legal in several states. In 2012, it’s most backward to generalize and portray cannabis users as being slow, loopy, and inept, but it is easy comedy. Maybe one should watch Bill Maher or, perchance, see Willie Nelson in concert? Or, watch Family Guy? Or: read about cannabis? The truth: alcohol and NSAIDs will harm if not kill more Americans than both cannabis and narcotics. A fine rendition that involves a smart subtext, yes, but re-introducing reefer madness-propaganda isn’t wise.