The A--hole Monologues, onstage at
the Exit Theatre, is the latest in a series of shows whose titles were dirty words just a
few short years ago.
Presented by a group of Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York performers who call themselves
Mr. Bagel Productions, this compendium of 18 music and comedy bits is lighter than the
feminist-fueled Vagina Monologues, and weightier than the goofy genital origami
display, Puppetry of the Penis.
Corey Rosen, an Industrial Light and Magic visual effects artist who produced and directed
the show, starts things off with a dramatic reading of Edgar Allan Poo's The Bowels.
This clever bathroom transcription of Poe's The Bells by Derek Cochran is right on
target.
In the production's cleanest segment, Being an A**hole and Getting Beat Up by One,
the appealing Jason Winer talks about two pivotal events in his life: when, as a
12-year-old, he saved his little brother from the neighborhood bully, and years later, when
he wouldn't stop badgering a woman about her "chronic headshaking problem," to find out
later that she was disabled.
San Francisco standup Al Madrigal gets a lot of laughs with his Corporate A**holes
diatribe against Albertson's (for its lame, after-the-fact shopping card program) and Burger
King (where employees thwart his enjoyment of a chicken club sandwich).
The only performer not dressed in basic black is Johanna Stein, who, wearing stripes, is a
mime (yes, mime!) doing quite unmentionable acts.
Wordsmith Jenny Meyer's Names resembles material from Eve Ensler's Vagina
Monologues. Meyer recites results of her survey in which she asked thousands of people
what they call the part. The answers range from clinical (anus) to graphic (torpedo
launcher) to silly ("poopulator") to obscure ("munt").
The nervous, hostile Rebecca Corry's anger management technique is Poo Flinging. Why
be deadly and violent, she asks, when you can smear excrement on your enemies and
detractors? Though it sounds disgusting, Corry's actually funny; it's all in the delivery.
The show moves from the bathroom to the bedroom in the second half. Proceedings are
decidedly more adult.
In Sound Poem, m.i. blue nearly deafens the audience with his high-volume, high
octane description of his sex life.
There's multi-media, too. The Nasty features Mark Growden, a troubadour with an
accordion, accompanying an old-fashioned slide show that graphically illustrates his own
sexual exploits -- with a pink-haired inflatable doll.
While none of these performers is likely to make it big on Broadway, the show's musical
songs do have clever lyrics, and its closing anthem, Do Not Enter (The Song of My
A**hole) is downright hummable. A CD is even available for purchase.
Some of the proceeds of the CD sale, and all from the performances, benefit the Crohn's and
Colitis Foundation of America. Appropriately, director Rosen closes the show with a
monologue, My Life in Scope, about the experience of living with a chronic digestive
disease.
There's a butt in a lot of the jokes, but some serious stuff to consider, too.
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