‘The Big Funk’ Review: Inside Out and Upside Down

If you are a strong believer in theatrical conventions, “The Big Funk,” which the program calls “a casual play,” written by John Patrick Shanley and directed by Lori Kee, will turn your world upside down. Not only does it get rid of “the fourth wall” between the audience and the actors; it also makes you wonder about who is more real, you or the characters.

Think about this: you, a conforming member of modern society, have a bunch of rules you have to observe on a daily basis. You go to work, you socialize with friends, doing your best to be nice to everyone and you hardly ever let others know what kind of person you are under the mask of decency you are obliged to wear. This is what makes you different from John Patrick Shanley’s characters.

Appearing on the stage for the first time, they announce up front who they are and what you should expect of them. “I am a neurotic,” says Jill (Ivette Dumeng), and you can’t help but wish every person you meet were just as honest. “I am an adult, which means my life is a war,” confesses Fifi (Meghan Jones) with sophistication that does not go together with her multicolored bodysuit and white pantyhose with sparkles. Moreover, some of them expose themselves not only metaphorically (the nudity warning is not an exaggeration), push each other out of scenes and argue about who the real hero of this performance is. And don’t worry: the question isn’t left open for your interpretation, either.

With all this said, you are wrong to think that you are just a passive observer. The actors walk right into your personal space, and you even get to sing along to live music performed by The Roly Polys, the singer, Janet Bentley, and the keyboard player, Andy Cohen, who also entertain you with their improvisations before the performance starts and during the intermission. The presence of the live band from Florida makes the play like a musical, and you forget you are sitting in an off-off Broadway Teatro Latea.

It is not just entertainment, however.

The actors’ monologues are poetic (“I believe in live and let live”) and contain references to Agamemnon, as well as Freud. Playing with your expectations, “The Big Funk” at the same time raises important philosophical questions. “The pursuit of happiness is a mistake,” announces Omar (Josh Sienkiewicz), an unsuccessful knife thrower, at the dinner table in his house, and explains, “You don’t pursue happiness; it comes to you while you’re doing other things.” He and his wife, Fifi, seem to be happy together. They are a stereotypically ideal couple. He is masculine, bearded, strong and passionate, and she fusses around him, like a caring and obedient wife, fulfilling his every desire.

Fifi’s behavior outrages Jill, who believes that a pregnant woman should not be running around like a servant. Jill is still single, and Austin (Jacob Troy), a promising actor and a friend of Omar and Fifi, is the only guy in her life who treats her decently, regardless of the fact that he picks her up in a bar, her face and body greased with excessive amount of Vaseline, the marks left by her previous date. There is definitely nothing ordinary about the characters of “The Big Funk.”

And still, for some reason you can’t help but think that somehow they are more normal than you are. Maybe it is because of what Austin says in his long lecture in the end of the play, “You think the play is make-believe? Society is make-believe.” And as you think that your life, in fact, often boils down to playing by someone else’s rules, you realize that reality is just as big a funk as the play.