“Billy” is silly.
The characters are confusing. The production values are nearly invisible. The plot, if any, is missing in action.
It is also an enormous amount of fun.
It attempts to recreate a James Bond/Mission Impossible style action film in a garage underneath a condominium on 18th Street in the middle of the Castro, that barely seats an audience of about 30 lucky people. The premise (in as much as I could figure it out) is absurd.
The Colonel (John Fisher) works for the government as some kind of secret service agent, perhaps an assassin. He is trying to take care of Ivan (Ronnie Anderson), a Russian agent with the ethics and sensibilities of Boris Badenov. A very GAY Boris Badenov. The colonel has been teamed with a lesbian named Day (Raye Goh), also an assassin, but with a fiercely loving lesbian heart.
They chase Ivan through the bathhouses of Europe, followed by Day’s somewhat baffled but head-over-heels-in-love girlfriend, Barbara (Puja Tolton). They encounter a number of other characters (identified in the program as Various Other People) played by Raphael Buenaventura who simultaneously functions as stage manager, light board operator, and sound operator. Don’t ask me what any of this has to do with someone named “Billy.” I haven’t the slightest iodea.
In his program note, playwright/director/star John Fisher begins with the observation: “[It is] hard to know what to say about this one.” I agree. It certainly is.
He goes on to say that he wanted to do something that showed queer people involved in geopolitics and foreign affairs. And what if they were villains? Or spies? Or asssasins? Or James Bond? He then remarks: “For the rest of it, here are a bunch of things I’ve always wanted to do onstage.”
In the course of one quickly passing hour, that bunch of things—with the aid of minimal lighting effects by Colin Johnson and a clever sound design by Raphael Buenaventura—includes parachutiing out of an airplane onto a moving train, fighting off sharks with shocks in the middle of the ocean, running through traffic in some European city (Paris, perhaps?), playing hide and seek in a Moscow bathhouse, paying a visit to Istanbul and a whole lot more.
To call the evening athletic is an understatement. As the two assasins, Fisher and Goh don’t miss a beat as they go from one unbelievable set piece to another. They are fast, furious and funny. As director, Fisher understands that farce of this sort should be played so energetically that the actors can barely manage it and it always looks as if they are about to fall apart. But they don’t. It is a high wire act and these actors know how to bring it off.
As Ivan, Ronnie Anderson is so over-the-top he makes Paul Lynde look demur. Raphael Buenaventura’s “other people” are carefully delineated and very funny, especially a flamboyant queen with a Ph.D. working as a night manager at a hotel in …. oh, I never did figure out where…
You wanna laugh and have a good time? This is the place for it. You wanna think? Stay home and watch PBS.
And, friends, if you DO go to the Castro for this malarkey, and you manage to figure out who “Billy” is and what the heck he has to do with the play, drop me a line.
Theatre Rhinoceros through February 25. For further information click here.
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Rating: ***1/2 (For an explanation of Theatrestorm’s rating scale, click here.)
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“Billy,” written and directed by John Fisher. Produced by Theatre Rhinoceros. Stage Design: Raphael Buenaventura. Lighting Design: Colin Johnson. Sound Design: Raphael Buenaventura. Costume Design: John Fisher.
Cast:
Ivan: Ronnie Anderson. The Colonel: John Fisher. Day: Raye Goh. Barbara Puja Tolton. Various Other People: Raphael Buenaventura.
TheatreStorm 