‘Pleasure’s’ fantasy
rewards patience
A 16-year-old male with "performance anxiety." A man who wants his daughter to have her first sexual experience with a "real man," not a callow youth. A child-woman who realizes she requires the freedom to define her own route to sexual happiness. Snickers bars, Barbie dolls and a hair brush.
These are among the essential ingredients in the Lizard Loft production of "Pleasure" at the ARTS at Marks Garage. The show upholds director Troy M. Apostol's reputation for staging edgy material that challenges conventional values and scorns political correctness. Playwright Eric Yokomori's look at sexuality appears a few rewrites short of perfection, but there are enough surprises and perverse comic situations to make "Pleasure" worth a look for those who can handle the explicit content. Patience is also a prerequisite because "Pleasure" moves more slowly than necessary in spots.
"Pleasure": Presented by the Lizard Loft at the ARTS at Marks Garage, 1159 Nuuanu Ave., at 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday, and 5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $10 general, $5 students. Call 538-8047 or visit www.lizardloft.org.
"Pleasure" opens with Todd (Gerard Elmore) being interrogated by one of his teachers. Mr. Brown (Nelson Pires) wants to know why Todd gave Brown's daughter, Beverly (Lauren Kepa'a), a copy of the Kama Sutra and why the inscription included a suggestion that Beverly refer to a particular page.
It is a rhetorical question on Brown's part. "I know about being 16," he snarls.
Todd insists that it's not like that. It turns out that he's telling the truth, although it's not for lack of trying. Todd simply isn't experiencing what most guys his age experience several times a day. Poor guy! Beverly and her father tell Todd to talk with his father (Stu Hirayama), but Todd doesn't consider that an option, even though his father is more than willing to talk about sex while watching porn with Grandpa (Jason Kanda).
Are we feeling pleasure yet?
As a theatrical experience, "Pleasure" is akin to an average teenage guy's knowledge of sexual technique. The components are there, but the follow-through is sketchy and the results sometimes not fulfilling. For instance, Todd's first confrontation with Mr. Brown takes too long to hit comic pay dirt, and Grandpa's lengthy football story drags on, with no clear relevance to Todd's problem or anything else in the story.
Sit patiently through the meandering stuff, and some well-constructed nuggets of dark comedy appear. Hirayama is on the money as a comic actor in a scene in which Dad explains why there is only a 10 percent chance that he is Todd's biological father.
Elmore succeeds throughout this 60-minute encounter in delivering a believable portrayal of an anxious young man who wants to please his girlfriend with a fulfilling sexual experience but is terrified of losing her if he is unable to fully rise to the occasion.
Kepa'a gives a winning performance as a young woman determined to find a satisfying balance between romantic love and sexual pleasure; she, too, adds welcome bits of offbeat and perverse comedy to several of the most gripping scenes.
But it's Pires who takes the production farthest over the edge in playing a father who might be protective for the wrong reasons.
"Pleasure" is performed in the round, and one woman sitting on the far side of the performance area Friday looked particularly grossed out at each hint of incest. How many fathers take their 16-year-old daughters shopping for panties? Maybe only at the Lizard Loft, where Pires and Kepa'a are in perfect sync playing out Yokomori's dark and politically incorrect comic fantasy.
Apostol and Christy M. Hauptman share directing duties in this challenging and provocative piece of unconventional theater.
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