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Review
7 Blow Jobs
by Dolores Whiskeyman
Any Washington, D.C., Democrat reeling from the outcome of the Nov. 5 election will find comfort in a hilarious little ditty by Mac Wellman now playing at Art-O-Matic near the waterfront.
7 Blow Jobs, staged by Purchased Experiences Theatre Co. as part of a month-long festival of underground art, takes on those bastions of Republican stick-up-your-butt-ism, former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms and the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Moral Majority (and gee-I'm-sorry-I-said-that) fame.
The story, such as it is, opens with the delivery of a packet of seven dirty pictures to the office of Sen. Bob, a conservative senator from an unnamed southern state. Is it surveillance? Or is it a smear? Or is it really a lot of fuzzy pictures of the Pope?
Whatever it is, it causes a virtual meltdown among the staff and prompts the senator to call in Rev. Tom (Dan Brick) for advice and counsel. Sen. Bob (Paul McLane) is a no-nonsense man of the people who keeps a running list of suspected homosexuals and "pecker-watchers" -- Richard Nixon and George Washington, to name a few. Meanwhile Rev. Tom decries these "photos of unnatural acts capable of rendering a grown man happy."
Okay, it's a lot of froth. Written at the height of the culture wars in 1991, when Helms was hell-bent on dismantling the National Endowment for the Arts, 7 Blow Jobs is not so much a play as an opportunity for Wellman to riff on the gross hypocrisies of the Christian right. And there's plenty to riff about.
Director Kathleen Akerley's production serves the piece well. Working in a third-floor office, without benefit of traditional theatre lighting or for that matter, much of a budget, Akerley makes effective use of found space. And her casting is apt; the entire troupe dives into Wellmans' world of absurdity with great gusto. (Surveillance extends, apparently, to the senator's progeny -- a character called BobBob Jr. is on hand for no other purpose but to shadow the Senator's son, Bob Jr.) There's no question, however, that the evening belongs to Brick and McLane. For one thing, they've got the best lines.
As Rev. Tom, Brick drives home the stereotype of the sexually repressed (and obsessed) prude whose outrage barely conceals his excitement. And McLane is superb as a man whose convictions are unruffled by logic.
Clearly this piece won't win any arguments with conservatives, but that isn't really Wellman's point. His point is to make fun of people he despises, and for my blood, he does it in a most entertaining fashion.
| 7 Blow Jobs by Mac Wellman Directed by Kathleen Akerley With Amy Clarke, Dan Brick, Jeanne Dillon, Jonathon Church, Paul McLane A production of Purchased Experiences Theatre Co. Art-O-Matic, on the Waterfront at 401 M Street (formerly the Waterside Mall). Through Nov. 30 2002. Telephone 202-361-9138 Reviewed by Dolores Whiskeyman Nov. 7 based on a Nov. 2 performance. |
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