The Motherfucker with the Hat

http://themfwiththehat.com/about/




With the death of Amy Winehouse, once again we have lost a talented young artist, probably to addiction. Of all the commentary on the event, Russell Brand(!) has offered the one most worth reading. In addition to recounting his personal history with Winehouse, he reminds us:

Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt [Cobain]'s or Jimi [Hendrix]'s or Janis [Joplin]'s. Some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalization doesn't even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.

The Motherfucker with the Hat, an ear-splitting look at life in recovery (and not), depicts some of those less-talented drunks and junkies in their one-day-at-a-time struggle to get by. I love the idea of the play, which is both important and ripe for humor and insight. And the creative team is promising: Although I'd never seen any of Stephen Adly Guirgis's previous plays, they all sound interesting (Jesus Hopped The A Train, Our Lady of 121st Street, The Little Flower of East Orange). Plus, Anna Shapiro won the Tony for directing a similarly intense dark dramedy, August: Osage County.

As it was the show's closing weekend and I was out of things to see, I figured I'd finally give Hat a shot (sorry, that's a fairly bad pun if you've seen the show). I had been avoiding this play because tickets weren't cheap and I'm not a huge fan of the two leads, Chris Rock and Bobby Cannavale. Both seem fairly one-note to me across their respective bodies of work. In the supporting cast, Annabella Sciorra has been hit or miss for me, and I had no idea who Elizabeth Rodriguez or Yul Vásquez were. Sadly, Rock and Cannavale were true to form in Hat, and Rodrigues and Sciorra cranked up their volume to meet the guys, shrieking expletive after expletive (or maybe everyone else rose to Rodriguez's inexplicable constant fever pitch). Their performances certainly did nothing to make up for weaknesses in the script.

I can't believe the show was only 90ish minutes long, because it seemed interminable. (At least Todd Rosenthal, also a Tony winner for August's set design, gave me something cool to look at.) The only real surprises came from the most minor character--also the only actor who didn't scream every line. I perked up every time Vásquez appeared because I had no idea what kind of crazy, or touching, or profound shit his endearingly odd character would say. And Vásquez managed to make some pretty wacky lines seem sincere, so I'll definitely be on the lookout for what he does next.

Perhaps I'm just not the target audience for this show, because other people were busting up all around me (in the cheap seats). But I should be the perfect audience for this type of play. I'm a huge fan of the antihero, and the unhappy ending. In fact, I do love much of what the play has to say, mainly that giving up drugs and alcohol is only the first step in turning a life around. It won't turn a self-centered tool into a saint, a layabout into a hard worker, or a cheat into a monogamist. And though your sponsor may be able to help keep you on the wagon, it doesn't mean he's a role model in any other aspect of life. On the flip side, just because someone is a total asshat doesn't mean he doesn't also have something important to offer along your path.

The show is short enough that I might--a couple years from now--go see a good local company production of Hat, just to see whether different direction and acting choices change my opinion of the script.