202. Review of YEAR OF THE ROOSTER (January 13, 2014)

203. YEAR OF THE ROOSTER

For nearly half a century, the Ensemble Studio Theatre has had plenty to crow about, including the long roster of future stars it’s nurtured and the many excellent new playwrights it’s produced. Judging by the small number of reviews, most of them positive, that their new production, Eric Dufault’s YEAR OF THE ROOSTER, has received, they’ve added yet a couple of additional feathers to their cap, both for the work of Mr. Dufault and for that of actor Bobby Moreno, who even earned a profile in the New York Times. For this viewer, though, the show—which returns after an earlier presentation last fall—doesn’t actually lay an egg, but tastes more like a Chicken McNugget than chicken cordon bleu.

From left: Delphi Harrington, Thomas Lyons, Bobby Moreno. Photo: Russ Kuhner.

 

             The 25-year-old Mr. Dufault, a member of the exciting playwriting collective called Youngblood, for playwrights younger than 30—which includes such comers as Annie Baker, Amy Herzog, Michael Lew, and Lucy Thurber—has pecked out a two-act play about cockfighting set among the cockers, as they’re called, in Oklahoma redneck country, with the razor-clawed combatants being foulmouthed (fowlmouthed?) roosters (played by actors) specially bred and trained for this illegal blood sport. The central plot concerns a chubby, nerdy McDonald’s burger flipper named Gil Pepper (Thomas Lyons), who lives in a decrepit home designed by Alexis Distler (piles of McDonald’s food boxes are the principal décor), surrounded by low wooden walls to suggest a square cockfight arena; living with him is is his unwashed old mother, Lou (Delphi Harrington delightfully channeling Marjorie Main). Lou carries around a small bundle of wool representing her lap dog, which seems one breath away from death. Gil owns a fearsome rooster named Odysseus Rex (Bobby Moreno), Ody, for short—the play has many such classical allusions—on whom he lavishes all his attention (even though he’s forced to wear a patch over the eye Ody destroyed), hoping to gain success as a cockfight trainer. When, in a physically demanding cockfight, well staged by Qui Nguyen, Ody slaughters the blind but ferocious Bat Dolphin, owned by the hardboiled promoter Dickie Thimble (Denny Dale Bass, who also plays Bat Dolphin), Gil finally has something to squawk about.

 

Bobby Moreno, Thomas Lyons. Photo: Russ Kuhner.

 

            The play, with its many references to “balls” is about how Gil grows a pair of his own. The prize he earns when Ody kills Bat Dolphin is two eggs bearing potentially lethal future roosters, but these are accidentally smashed when Dickie, claiming Gil cheated, beats him up; the eggs appear to be symbols for the balls Gil needs to rule the roost. He’s even bullied by a pretty female coworker, Philipa (Megan Tusing), who ridicules him for, among other things, what she’s heard is his small penis (yes, another play that finds humor in dick size). While unable to assert himself with the aggressive Philipa, Gil seeks a mate for Ody, visiting a McDonald’s farm to buy him a genetically altered hen (Ms. Tusing) that’s so fat she has trouble standing. But Gil fails to recognize that Ody’s fallen in love with this chick and he gets rid of her, bringing great sorrow to the cock, who has no idea of what Gil has done. After other “tragic” events, Gil finds his heroic core, triumphantly planning to strut his stuff during the coming Year of the Rooster.

 

 

Megan Tusing, Bobby Moreno. Photo: Russ Kuhner.

            THE YEAR OF THE ROOSTER is given high-octane comic performances by a talented cast that, under John Giampietro’s direction, is generally effective but sometimes borders on shrillness. Despite often clever dialogue, the overall tone is too cartoonish and one-dimensional to earn more than cheap laughs (like some in this review). The much lauded performance of Bobby Moreno, despite the actor’s physical adeptness at imitating a rooster’s movements, failed to move me, depending as it does on lots of shouted vulgarity and testosterone-fueled activity. He’s playing a raucous, vulgar birdbrain, so there’s little room for nuance here. The costume created for him by Sydney Maresca, consisting of a tail coat, tight jeans, boots, kneepads, and white t-shirt, with feathers at strategic points, is a great idea, just as the fat chicken suit is for the lovelorn hen, but the play needs more than these creative incubators before it can hatch.

            THE YEAR OF THE ROOSTER may not have impressed me as everything it’s cracked up to be, but, as I got ready to fly the coop, there were lots of cockers (alter and otherwise) in attendance clucking happily at the end. I guess the yolk was on me.