The Motherf**ker in the Hat

‘The Motherf**ker with the Hat’ is a hilarious play written by 49 year old Stephen Adly Guirgis, an LA cycling courier. A couple of years ago this territory breaking piece was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Play and three Drama Desk Awards. The script of this verbally shocking piece at first hides the brilliance of the writing. The confronting and raw style is similar to Tracy Letts (‘Killer Joe’ and ‘Bug’) but this goes so much further, by pushing the boundaries and its character development.

This WA Premiere is a Perth FRINGE WORLD Festival 2013 event presented by Black Swan State Theatre Company at the Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre of WA in Northbridge.  Might I suggest that the Fringe programme rating of ‘PG’ be read as ‘MA+’.

Performed nightly at 8.00 until the 3^rd February, there are several matinees.

Built on a rotating stage, there are no curtains. On entering, you find yourself staring at what could be your student-days bedroom, or that of your teenage, rebellious child. The filthy room is a New York flat in the city’s poorest Puerto Rican area. The walls are desperately in need of a coat of fresh paint, and the dirty clothes strewn around the floor confirm the type of tenants.

      As young, beautiful but unkempt Veronica (Rhoda Lopez) sniffs another ‘line’ from the table top, the apartment door flies open and in staggers her drunk, affectionate husband Jackie (Austin Castiglione). Since being released from prison, after a stretch for petty drug dealing, Jackie has been job hunting and at last, he has found one. 

      His life is about to turn around, and so he decides that the best way to celebrate is to have mad passionate sex with his dream girl. As he kisses her, he notices a man’s hat sitting on the side table, but who is the mother**er that owned it?

      Jackie is furious and accuses poor Veronica of infidelity. She defends herself – verbally leaving her husband in no uncertain terms of her feelings and how wrong he is. However, Jackie is having none of these pathetic excuses and storms out to his friend Ralph’s house. Ralph (Kenneth Ransom) was Jackie’s caring and understanding sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous, before Jackie went into prison. 

      Ralph is a repressed man, well under the thumb of his slovenly, miserable and foul mouthed wife, Victoria (Alison van Reeken). They decide to leave and go around to see Julio. Hispanic Julio (Fayssal Bazzi) is Jackie’s cousin, happily married; just the type of person to give good solid advice on Veronica’s imagined infidelity.

Thus is the first major Perth production of 2013 and it has set the bar at an incredibly high standard. The actors, who are all known for their demure, polite and humorous natures have been cast well outside their comfort zones. The characters depicted are raw, repulsive and foulmouthed. The first few minutes of the play had me thinking surely we are not going to have 100-minutes of this bickering and unpleasantness, but soon the brilliant writing of Guirgis had the audience laughing and mentally taking sides in the argument. There were numerous twists, and the storyline just drew you in.

The award-winning director, Adam Mitchell, guided the actors into their complex characters, and then helped them through the tongue twisting lines and American accent. The whole cast worked as a perfectly solid unit, with superb rapport, never flickering as the fast moving script galloped along.

The outstanding set, or to be more correct, the four very different and splendidly conceived locations are masterminded by Bryan Woltjen. Bryan was also responsible for the ideally chosen costumes. The lighting (Trent Suidgeest) which could easily have been bland floodlights, was exciting. The ingenious use of angles, strobe, and colour combined in perfect harmony with James Luscombe’s intellectual sound design. The united effect added to the pace and thrill of this riveting show.

The fight sequences, directed by Andy Fraser, were most convincing.

With a mobile revolving stage, normally anyone mounting the stage at the rear can be heard; here the stage team of Michael MacLean and Natasha Deacon worked their miracles silently.

I cannot imagine a better, all round production being likely this year. A stunningly professional play that will doubtlessly receive many award nominations.

Don’t let the title put you off, but think twice about taking your old maiden aunt. Be prepared to fight for a ticket, the demand will be huge.