Jess Barbagallo & Andy Phelan / Photo by John Alexander
The title comes from one of those old playground rhymes (“Milk, milk, lemonade… around the corner, fudge is made!”) that always left the little boys laughing hysterically while I smiled embarrassedly, but MilkMilkLemonade is the kind of inspired silliness that downtown playwrights usually strain so hard for without achieving.
A no-budget production (“Use your imaginations,” the nervous narrator implores the audience, with a twitch of desperation), MilkMilkLemonade tells the tale of Emory (Andy Phelan), a gay fifth grader whose best friend is a giant chicken named Linda (Jennifer Harder). His grandmother Nanna (Michael Cyril Creighton), who is aghast that her grandson could be a homosexual, orders him to stop playing with dolls and chickens and spend more time with the hyper-masculine Elliot (Jess Barbagallo), whose interests include throwing balls, beating up Emory and setting things on fire.
What Nanna doesn’t know is that Elliot also enjoys playing an extremely detailed version of house with Emory, one that focuses less on homemaking and more on ennui and memories of prom—before a vigorous round of lovemaking. But all isn’t fun and games for Emory. Today is processing day, which means that unless he can hide Linda somewhere on the farm, she’ll be dumped into the machine and spit out as prepackaged chicken cutlets before the sun has set.
The bare bones plot may sound like the sort of tedious exercise in curdled innocence so popular with downtown theater companies, but what elevates MilkMilkLemonade is playwright Joshua Conkel’s eye for the telling detail and pitch-perfect ear for one-liners; I could fill an entire review just quoting my favorite lines. Emory and Linda don’t just chat and share confidences; they practice a hilariously choreographed version of “Anything Goes.” Not to just cover, though—the Harper’s Bazaar version that played under the opening credits of The Boys in the Band. And Elliot, despite his pyromaniac tendencies, has a surprising obsession with dressing up in a tux for the prom in a few years.
As funny as Conkel’s script is (and it’s among the funnier shows I’ve seen this year), director Isaac Butler and his brilliant cast have taken his lines and situations and run with them. If Nikole Beckwith steals the show as the narrator who translates Linda’s clucks into common English, plays the role of Eliot’s parasitic twin living in his thigh and impersonates one very angry and scary spider named Rochelle, it’s simply that she’s less hindered by the demands of the plot. She can be—and is—as outrageous as possible, and scores laughs on practically every line that comes out of her mouth. But there isn’t one cast member who doesn’t seem like a star in the making (a rarity in any production, let alone a downtown one).
Conkel’s best scene just might be his riff on Tennessee Williams when Emory and Elliot play house. Sitting slumped at the window in a pink kimono watching the bug zapper, Emory barely listens while Elliot comes in, guzzling a Capri Sun and complaining about his day. “Funny how I always root for the moths,” Emory says with all the delicate emotionalism of Blanche DuBois. “Don’t go into that light, I think. Don’t do it! And just for a second I think they won’t. Then zap!” What Conkel isn’t afraid to write about in this scene—and throughout the play—is the dark side to childhood, one in which the effects of shitty parents and over-zealously Christian grandmothers leave their marks early and deep. That his characters are gay is ultimately beside the point, though their sexuality brings them more abuse than they might normally expect.
And later, in the play’s dramatic climax, things take a darker turn as Conkel avoids a happy ending (this isn’t a children’s show, after all, despite the primary colors) for one that teaches a painful lesson. Everyone has a place and purpose in the world, and sometimes you can’t overcome your own destiny. But sometimes, you can escape the most immediate dangers.
Butler does allow the play to falter at its mid-point, letting his staging grow a little static (and a late-in-the-show dance number is pointless and strange). But when the writing and the acting connect, as they do for most of the 75 minutes running time, there’s very little better than MilkMilkLemonade anywhere south of 14th Street.
>MilkMilkLemonade
Through Sept. 26, Under St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Place (betw. 1st Ave. & Ave. A), www.smarttix.com; times vary, $18.
A no-budget production (“Use your imaginations,” the nervous narrator implores the audience, with a twitch of desperation), MilkMilkLemonade tells the tale of Emory (Andy Phelan), a gay fifth grader whose best friend is a giant chicken named Linda (Jennifer Harder). His grandmother Nanna (Michael Cyril Creighton), who is aghast that her grandson could be a homosexual, orders him to stop playing with dolls and chickens and spend more time with the hyper-masculine Elliot (Jess Barbagallo), whose interests include throwing balls, beating up Emory and setting things on fire.
What Nanna doesn’t know is that Elliot also enjoys playing an extremely detailed version of house with Emory, one that focuses less on homemaking and more on ennui and memories of prom—before a vigorous round of lovemaking. But all isn’t fun and games for Emory. Today is processing day, which means that unless he can hide Linda somewhere on the farm, she’ll be dumped into the machine and spit out as prepackaged chicken cutlets before the sun has set.
The bare bones plot may sound like the sort of tedious exercise in curdled innocence so popular with downtown theater companies, but what elevates MilkMilkLemonade is playwright Joshua Conkel’s eye for the telling detail and pitch-perfect ear for one-liners; I could fill an entire review just quoting my favorite lines. Emory and Linda don’t just chat and share confidences; they practice a hilariously choreographed version of “Anything Goes.” Not to just cover, though—the Harper’s Bazaar version that played under the opening credits of The Boys in the Band. And Elliot, despite his pyromaniac tendencies, has a surprising obsession with dressing up in a tux for the prom in a few years.
As funny as Conkel’s script is (and it’s among the funnier shows I’ve seen this year), director Isaac Butler and his brilliant cast have taken his lines and situations and run with them. If Nikole Beckwith steals the show as the narrator who translates Linda’s clucks into common English, plays the role of Eliot’s parasitic twin living in his thigh and impersonates one very angry and scary spider named Rochelle, it’s simply that she’s less hindered by the demands of the plot. She can be—and is—as outrageous as possible, and scores laughs on practically every line that comes out of her mouth. But there isn’t one cast member who doesn’t seem like a star in the making (a rarity in any production, let alone a downtown one).
Conkel’s best scene just might be his riff on Tennessee Williams when Emory and Elliot play house. Sitting slumped at the window in a pink kimono watching the bug zapper, Emory barely listens while Elliot comes in, guzzling a Capri Sun and complaining about his day. “Funny how I always root for the moths,” Emory says with all the delicate emotionalism of Blanche DuBois. “Don’t go into that light, I think. Don’t do it! And just for a second I think they won’t. Then zap!” What Conkel isn’t afraid to write about in this scene—and throughout the play—is the dark side to childhood, one in which the effects of shitty parents and over-zealously Christian grandmothers leave their marks early and deep. That his characters are gay is ultimately beside the point, though their sexuality brings them more abuse than they might normally expect.
And later, in the play’s dramatic climax, things take a darker turn as Conkel avoids a happy ending (this isn’t a children’s show, after all, despite the primary colors) for one that teaches a painful lesson. Everyone has a place and purpose in the world, and sometimes you can’t overcome your own destiny. But sometimes, you can escape the most immediate dangers.
Butler does allow the play to falter at its mid-point, letting his staging grow a little static (and a late-in-the-show dance number is pointless and strange). But when the writing and the acting connect, as they do for most of the 75 minutes running time, there’s very little better than MilkMilkLemonade anywhere south of 14th Street.
>MilkMilkLemonade
Through Sept. 26, Under St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Place (betw. 1st Ave. & Ave. A), www.smarttix.com; times vary, $18.
