Dirty (The Gift Theatre Company)

 Life can be overwhelming sometimes.

Especially in the Fall. As theatre people, Fall is usually our busiest time and we are all finishing planning our seasons and trying to book our final Spring shows. So, it has taken me a while to write about this play I saw a couple weeks ago called “Dirty” out at The Gift.

Not because I didn’t like it. I, in fact, REALLY liked it. The acting is great. 

But here's the thing:

This kid Michael Patrick Thornton has it all going on for him. He is a handsome TV star, so he doesn’t care what I think about it. Tom Hickey is in it, and he is always awesome, so HE doesn’t care what I think. The great Jon Berry directed, and the now hugely popular Andrew Hinderaker wrote it, so they could care less about my opinion, so it makes it harder for me to even get into it, because these 4 dudes are at the fucking TOP OF THE GAME.      

You all know it, too. You KNOW this play is good. It is an act too long. The story gets a little too complicated…whatever. It’s awesome and you all know it already without even seeing it.

The play is about making porno movies. See, the main couple likes to watch porno movies. The dude (Thornton) is unhappy with his life as a stock broker or something and his wife (the robust and comely Hillary Clemens) is a struggling…I wanna say…Not-For-Profit…Women’s shelter worker? Something like that. So the guy decides he hates his job and wants to start a porno movie company. The wife says she will help, but they have to have rules about the movies they make. No schoolgirl fantasies, nobody under 25, basically she doesn’t want these movies to have anything in them that makes you want to watch a porno.

If it was up to ladies, all of our porno movies would be middle aged women getting butt massages from Adrian Brody in a cake factory.

So this broad tries to get Mike Thornton to get down with this idea and of course he says yes because if your wife is letting you make porn, you have to agree to her rules, no matter how stupid they may be.

So then this lady (the Guatemalan and electrifying Mouzam Makkar) shows up who wants to be in the porno movies and she is only 20 years old.

Then it gets super complicated.

All the actors are awesome, of course. You know it and I know it. They are all probably better than you are.

Michael Patrick Thornton. Do you know about this guy? Of course you do. He’s great. His best quality though, is that he acts like he doesn’t care if anyone is there watching or not. Super relaxed, very casual. That is a cool trait to have in this city of stupid improvisers who cry if you don’t laugh at them because something went terribly wrong in their home life.

Anyway, you already want to see it, so go already. It is a very, very good play.

A+ 

-Anderson Lawfer, Eric Roach