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Audacious, if exhausting

Posted on Mon, Mar. 06, 2006

By MARK LOWRY, Staff Writer/ Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

Out of the Loop: Audacity Productions, The Last Castrato

Would you expect anything less than a show like this from a group called Audacity Productions? It's Andy Eninger's one-man play The Last Castrato, about a man, Joseph, who as the title implies, doesn't have male genitalia (he was born that way, not castrated, though).

Directed by Brad McEntire and performed with frenzied intensity by Jeff Swearingen, the show takes us through his journey of being placed in a school with mentally challenged students (although the play isn't as PC in explaining that) and going to Paris to become an artiste.

There he meets, and falls in love with, Elena, a woman born "inside-out." Her body is shrouded in a metal box to cover the fact that her organs are external. Only her head is exposed; a good thing since she has a gorgeous soprano voice. Since Joseph is a castrato and doesn't have the voice, he lip-synchs to the opera arias she sings offstage. It all goes downhill after their charade is discovered.

There's some outrageously funny stuff here. One major downfall - and it's unclear if Eninger wrote this into his stage directions or if McEntire directed it like this - is that Swearingen's physical movements were exhausting. He demonstrates every character change, even minor ones, with full turns or large gestures. Several times, his actions are unnecessarily literal illustrations of the narration.

For instance, as he says, "I ran away and hid myself," he sprints and hides behind a nearby table. Then he has to get right back up. Swearingen really gets into it, too. In a beating scene, he actually hits the venue's hardwood floor of Addison's Stone Cottage with his fists. "Ouch" for his subsequent swollen knuckles, and a big sympathy "ouch" for the audience. Audacious, indeed. There are no more showings of The Last Castrato at Out of the Loop, but you can catch it in April at Dallas' Pocket Sandwich Theatre.

Visit audacityproductions.net

Grade: B

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