Protection Program

Lavender Magazine
On The Townsend
by John Townsend
Protection Program
Through Jan. 13
Old Arizona Studios
2821 Nicollet Ave., Mpls.
(612) 871-0050
www.urbansamuraipro.com


Last year, playwright Aaron Christopher wowed us with Livelihood, a savage farce about sublimated homophobia in corporate America. Though Christopher's latest, Protection Plan, an Urban Samurai production at Old Arizona, isn't as interested in unearthing repressed psychosis, it reveals paranoid ramifications of our decades of unhealthy surveillance fixation. It could be retitled Queer Eye for the Straight Spy.

When he procures a secret flat for gay interior decorator Otto Pfaff (Nate Hessburg), a US marshal has no idea it also has been rented by a 'regular gal' named Cynthia (Marcia Svaleson). Otto is sequestered there for supposed safekeeping in a witness protection program. Cynthia's getting ready to marry.

It makes for a hornet's nest of misunderstandings that result in breakdowns ranging from harmless meddling neighbors to a gun-toting goon.

Matt Greseth's crisp direction highlights vivid caricatures underscoring that this farce is as well a contemporary comedy of American manners.

Emily Blanchard and Allen Malicsi push the envelope as a pathetic hetero couple. She's trapped in a 1950s-style housewife identity. He's trapped in a high school jock identity, typical of many in our own sports bar- and ESPN-driven era.

But it's Dawn Malicsi's eccentric Phiona, a neighbor suffering from religious programming and amnesia, who brilliantly spirits a weirdly internalized character into vivid farcical extroversion. She stresses that her name does not begin with an 'F.' It's very important we understand that!

Svaleson brings an androgynous edge to Cynthia that shrewdly contrasts Hessburg, whose portrayal, true to Christopher's intent, skates treacherously close to flaming gay stereotype.

Thankfully, it becomes cleverly clear that the sex fiends here are the straight folks.

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