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WINDY CITY TIMES
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Raised By Lesbians
Playwright: Leah Ryan
by Mary Shen Barnidge 2001-01-17
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This article shared 2315 times since Wed Jan 17, 2001
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Unlike Nicky Silver's Raised In Captivity, with which it is certain to be confused, the satire in Leah Ryan's Raised By Lesbians is not mean-spirited mockery designed to appeal to disgruntled adolescents. Indeed, Joe, its teenage protagonist, is a model of good behavior, his only crime that of being a male child born of a woman who discovered her homosexual propensities post partum. His now-divorced parents are not indifferent to his welfare: ex-hippie Dad attempts to be a masculine role model, albeit unsure what that may be. But ex-radical Mom's more laissez-faire nurturing renders her oblivious to the small-town peer pressure her son endures.
So with everybody—did I mention Dad's Martha Stewart-manqué wife and Joe's camera-happy girl-pal?—intent on doing The Right Thing, is it any wonder that their dreams take the form of a science-fiction movie, complete with mad scientists and menacing government officials battling for guardianship of the Feral Freak Boy?
Ryan's script has a hastily assembled quality to it—Doctor Glenda's assistant is named "Nurse Betty" for no apparent reason but convenience. A message in "secret code" turns out to be a lyric from "Stairway To Heaven." And young Gracie's concept for her cinema documentary ( which necessitates covert photosurveillances on Joe's mother and "Aunt Rita" ) is reiterated too many times. But even at the final preview performance I attended, the care and concern invested in this flimsy material by Green Highway Theater manifested itself with subtexts steeped in compassion and humanity.
Ariel Brenner commands the stage in the dual roles of the intense Dr. Glenda and the laid-back Alice ( who characterizes people as either dogs or cats. Dogs are needy, cats are selfish—get it? ) , flanked by Phillip Minton as the meek Joe/fierce Feral Freak Boy and Jonathan Webb as the bumbling Roy/ruthless Masked Man. And Marilyn Bielby, Jenn SavaRyan and Amy Guillory endow their underwritten characters with engaging personalities, while director Janel Winter keeps the action sufficiently giddy and kinetic to hold our attention for the show's bare 90-minute running time. Green Highway's mission purports to be "a safe place to be dangerous," but what their production may sacrifice in risk, it more than redeems in warmth and humor. |
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This article shared 2315 times since Wed Jan 17, 2001
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