by Barry Lowe
at Theatreworks until
February 12, 2000
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Joey Stefano was famous for his bottom. We have to presume
his bottom was spectacular because it made him a porn star and a sexual icon
for both gay men and straight women. Some bottom, I say.
Of course, "bottom" was also a deprecatory term
for the passive partner in anal sex. Joey, who was born just plain old white
trash, Italo-Americano, Nick Iacona, craved attention - and sex. The ideal way
to satisfy both needs was to make porn movies. His mother called him "an
old whore with a drug problem". She was right too.
Barry Lowe's play, Homme Fatale, is a solo play performed by
Stuart Halusz . Halusz's bottom features quite prominently too. He is naked at
least fifty percent of the 90 minutes which probably roughly equal to Joey's
own nakedness-to-time ratio.
This outer perimeter of the gay scene is always an
eye-opener for those, like me, who live a sheltered existence in ordinary-land.
If this were a television movie it would say, "Sex scenes, language,
violence, drugs." Wear your sunglasses.
Halusz is a good actor with an exceptionally sinewy body and
sweet face. His is a valiant performance as the beautiful and desperate joey as
he overdoses on celebrity, degradation, lust and drugs - lots of drugs.
It is Halusz's sweetness that separates him from Joey. Joey
was pure sex on screen and stage. He was fleshy, rough-edged with that
inimitable Latin, seductive raunchiness. Halusz is good but he is not quite
Joey.
Joey talks constantly, apart from a couple of awkward dance
routines. Lowe makes him talk about every thought, every move across the
country, every action, every sexual act. The production would be enhanced by
some liberal cutting of text
Director, Robert Chuter, keeps the pace cracking, which is
the way Joey lived until he died from an overdose in an LA motel room at the
age of twenty-six. He killed himself with "Special K", an animal anaesthetic.
Chuter has Halusz trapped on a narrow film set. Only his
clothes and props are tossed out of frame. It is claustrophobic. After ninety
minutes, we need some other dramatic action. Couldn't he climb the ladders at
the edges of the set?
by Kate Herbert
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