Slipping

Young men in torment over their sexual persuasion is the theme of Slipping, the contemporary drama by Daniel Talbott now in its L.A. premiere at the Lillian Theater. Talbott is a New York-based playwright who serves as literary manager of the Rattlestick Theater, the producing body behind Slipping, a play that has been mounted previously in Chicago and New York.

Wyatt Fenner takes on the tricky role of Eli, a gawky 17-year-old with a punk hairdo and attitude to match. Not only is he in rebellion against a world he never made, he is torn up inside by his conflicted feelings for a hunk of a boy named Chris (Maxwell Hamilton). Love battles self-loathing in Eli's psyche, making for a very tortured kid, one who takes out his unhappiness not just on his mother (Wendy vanden Heuvel) but on himself (by cutting himself with a razor).

Slipping has a circular kind of construction: it open with a scene in a New York coffee bar, where Eli (now in his early 20s) meets Jake (MacLeod Andrews), a boy he met after having made the move (with his mother) from Iowa to San Francisco. Jake, like Chris before him, is only tentatively and guiltily homosexual. Even today, he can't quite deal with his feelings in an open way. The play then jumps back in time to the first meeting between Eli and Jake, only to go back even further to the midwest trysts between Eli and Chris, trysts that seethe with lust, defiance, shame and even violence. The play then returns, via a series of short, staccato-like scenes, back to the present, focusing all the while on Eli's angst-ridden, blood-stained but ultimately ascendant journey.

Credit must be paid here to the dramatist, who has not tried to sentimentalize his protagonist or make him "sympathetic." Eli is unpleasant and annoying, but that doesn't mean he isn't human or unworthy of our attention. This is how it is for most kids growing up gay in this still largely homophobic society, Talbot is saying. The battle to cope can warp kids, maybe even kill them, but it's also a battle that can be won.

Slipping has been given a splendid production by Rattlestick: the action takes place on a sumptuous set and is buttressed by fine lighting, sound and projection values. Talbott as director also does a first-rate job: the many set and costume changes are brought off in slick, well-choreographed fashion. Above all, he has gotten topnotch acting jobs out of his four-person cast; each has gone deep into character and brought out all the intensity and complexity that make for good, gripping drama.