Monday , March 18 2024
Qendra Multimedia in '55 Shades of Gay' (Jetmir Idrizi)
Qendra Multimedia in '55 Shades of Gay' (Jetmir Idrizi)

Theater Review (NYC): ’55 Shades of Gay: Balkan Spring of Sexual Revolution’ – a Kosovo Burlesque

After stirring up controversy in its native Kosovo, 55 Shades of Gay: Balkan Spring of Sexual Revolution has alit at La Mama in much more LGBT-friendly New York City. Here this vigorous political burlesque is a cutting reminder that extreme and often institutionalized homophobia still reigns in many parts of the world.

Hearts and minds in the U.S. certainly aren’t immune. Nor is anything permanently settled in liberal Western Europe, and certainly not in the European Union as a whole. That’s the starting point for this electric tale of a condom factory, a same-sex marriage, and talking trees and weapons.

The bare-bones plot involves an Italian entrepreneur building a condom factory in a very conservative Kosovar town. He and a young local man apply to the town administrator for a marriage license. Because Kosovo wants admission to the EU, the country’s new constitution permits same-sex marriage, but the local bureaucrats, not to mention the homophobic townspeople, are having none of it. Soon some folks are literally up in arms.

Thus one of the fiercest social struggles of our age plays out in microcosm in this little town in a tiny country that many Westerners couldn’t find on a map.

Speaking or chanting many of their lines in accented English, the cast reverts to Albanian for some of the more furious dialogue. Dim supertitles become almost impossible to read when the performers line up on brightly lit squares downstage, and also at the end when a great puff of dry ice vapor obscures the backdrop.

Luckily, it’s not hard to get the drift, since the show is so conceptually supersized. Dialogue and declarations are shunted through modern-dance blocking, songs, chants, and sound effects, all shining a bright light on plainly depicted prejudice and spite, love and sex, and fumbling bureaucracy.

Costume elements, personifications of inanimate objects, and abstract blocking hark unapologetically back to the 20th-century theatrical avant-garde. But filtered through an unfamiliar culture, the spectacle feels mostly fresh, and all heartfelt. One can only marvel at the effort and dedication that must have gone, first, into creating and mounting this controversial show in Kosovo, then rendering much of it into English and taking it across the ocean.

Written by Jeton Neziraj, directed by Blerta Neziraj, and performed by multitalented Kosovar troupe Qendra Multimedia, this powerful, semi-operatic curiosity runs through March 17 at La MaMa. Visit the website for tickets and schedule.

About Jon Sobel

Jon Sobel is Publisher and Executive Editor of Blogcritics as well as lead editor of the Culture & Society section. As a writer he contributes most often to Music, where he covers classical music (old and new) and other genres, and Culture, where he reviews NYC theater. Through Oren Hope Marketing and Copywriting at http://www.orenhope.com/ you can hire him to write or edit whatever marketing or journalistic materials your heart desires. Jon also writes the blog Park Odyssey at http://parkodyssey.blogspot.com/ where he is on a mission to visit every park in New York City. He has also been a part-time working musician, including as lead singer, songwriter, and bass player for Whisperado.

Check Also

David Greenspan in 'On Set with Theda Bara' at the Brick Theater. Photo by Emilio Madrid

Theater Review (NYC): ‘On Set with Theda Bara,’ a Solo Show by Joey Merlo Starring David Greenspan

A modern-day genderqueer teen tracks down the ghost of silent film star Theda Bara in this whirlwind gothic-noir-camp solo show.