Always Wear a Rubber

Location: The Fringe Club (292 Brunswick Ave.)
Date: 11/07/09
Rating: ***

This half-hour production ran as part of a showcase from the Paprika Festival, which is a free theatrical opportunity open to people under the age of 21. The actors seemed a deep shade of green in comparison to professionals like Eric Davis from Red Bastard. They struggled with their characters and had some trouble creating a convincing space on stage. However, they all managed to pass as their archetypal characters; one of the female leads played a shy do-gooder that was struggling with her faith as she came into her own sexuality. Hers was the one original story.

The issues addressed by the play, on the other hand, were very interesting. The classroom arranged on stage was a Christian "reform" class for kids with homosexual tendencies. The rubber in the title has nothing to do with condoms. It's actually referring to a practice used by some of these groups that has young people inducing punishment on themselves for having impure thoughts by snapping an elastic that they wear on their wrists. There was an interesting audience participation element, where audience members were invited to shout their orientations out in an exuberantly vulgar fashion, hammering home that sexual orientation - whatever you associate with - is nothing to be embarrassed about and that assumptions about orientation are ridiculous.

These issues are nothing new but the specific religious aspect and rubber band issue gave this the edge it needed to freshen up the debate. While lacking the actors to make this production a real success, it was nevertheless a thought-provoking 30 minutes.