A Fateful Anomaly of Haberdashery

THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT: Theater Review

Well, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’ The Motherf**cker with the Hat is definitely not “old hat.” This two-act dramedy has a refreshingly raw realist take on marginalized characters, reminiscent of “Kitchen Sink” dramas about British proletarians. But unlike, say, John Osborne’s searing 1956 Look Back in Anger, Hat also looks back in humor, and is full of sparklingly witty repartee and dialogue, especially as rendered by Carlos Moreno Jr., who steals every scene he’s in as Cousin Julio.

He is related to the protagonist, Jackie (played by the fit Lodric D. Collins, an ex-Marine and extreme sports enthusiast), an ex-con and substance abuser now seeking gainful employment who, after a hard day of jobhunting, returns to the apartment he shares with Veronica (Jordan Marinov), his girlfriend since eighth grade (they now look to be in their thirties). Elated by a new job prospect, an ebullient Jackie showers affection and gifts, including a bouquet of flowers, on Veronica, who he initiates lovemaking with. She commits what turns out to be a fatal plot point, the play’s lynchpin, insisting upon taking a shower before they dance the horizontal tango. While waiting for his lover to come to bed, which Jackie suspects of smelling like Aqua Velva aftershave, he also notices the titular hat on the dining table. Immediately sensing something’s wrong and jumping to conclusions, the suspicious Jackie accuses Veronica of cheating on him when she re-enters refreshed from showering. He demands to know who “the motherfucker with the hat is”?!

This anomaly of haberdashery sets off the play’s entire series of events. It’s a good thing that instead of insisting on showering, Veronica didn’t just fuck the ecstatic Jackie first – because if she did go with the flow, theatergoers might have been deprived of Guirgis’ outrageously amusing, insightful 2.5 hour-or-so rumination on infidelity, friendship, substance abuse, prison, family, trust and more. BTW, throughout the course of the play Jackie also manages to miss two other opportunities for sexual intercourse, which is a sort of subtle recurring theme for this play that is, when it comes to sex, all hat and no cattle.

The other dramatic personae include Ralph (Alex Désert), the younger Jackie’s middle-aged sponsor for the 12-step program the substance abusing ex-con is in (and out of). The tart-tongued Victoria (Jolie Oliver, who also directs the production) is Ralph’s wife (and what is Victoria’s secret?). The aforementioned Cousin Julio (Moreno Jr.) clings on to Jackie because they are blood relations – even though Jackie never even so much as brings him “pistachios!” during any of his infrequent visits, as Julio relates in a humorous torrent of lament, lashing out at his self-obsessed lovable rogue of a cuz.

Although the entire cast turns in high caliber performances, Moreno Jr. is the best, the most offbeat and fun to observe, whenever Julio graces the stage with his presence in this five-hander. Moreno Jr. plays Julio as being quite effeminate, and when he meets Ralph, it seems as if Cousin Julio is coming on to him. But it turns out that, according to the dialogue, Julio is actually married to a woman (an offscreen presence), so who knows exactly what his sexual preference – or preferences (plural) – are?

While the TV series The Honeymooners depicted Caucasian blue-collar workers, Hat is arguably a 21^stcentury twist on that 1950s sitcom befitting today’s greater openness to sexuality, drug use and non-Caucasoid ethnicities. In this production, Victoria and Ralph (not Cramden) are Black, Cousin Julio and Jackie are Puerto Ricans, while Veronica is white. Guirgis, who is 60 this year, was reportedly born to an Egyptian father and Irish-American mother, grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and attended school at Harlem. Other casts in previous productions have had different ethnic configurations. The 2011 Broadway premiere, which racked up six Tony Award nominations, co-starred Chris Rock, Bobby Cannavale, and Annabella Sciorra (of Jungle Fever fame).

The Motherf**cker with the Hat depicts so many trust issues that it could have inspired Billy Joel to compose and write the lyrics for “Honesty.” Every one of this production’s spot on performances are flawlessly rendered by top notch thesps, and the quality of the acting may be amplified by the fact that, as said, director Jolie Oliver, who plays Victoria, is also a stage and screen actress herself and thus has deep insight into that art. Alex Désert (Ralph), who co-starred in the 1998-2004 TV sitcom Becker and appeared in films such as 2018’s Freaky Friday, has one of those familiar faces, even if the actor’s name doesn’t roll off your tongue. Lodric D. Collins currently appears in BET’s The Oval and played Smokey Robinson in the 2021 Aretha Franklin biopic Respect. Carlos Moreno Jr. (Cousin Julio) is the son of farmworkers, who has appeared on TV in series such as ER and Dexter.

After the premiere there was a post-performance discussion moderated by writer/actress/ producer Lena Waithe, co-winner of a 2017 Emmy in the Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series category for Master of None and whose extensive screen credits include co-writing 2019’s Queen & Slim. During this talkback the point was made that Hat is somehow politically relevant, but other than the fact that it does indeed have a multi-culti cast, I really don’t see that, unless you’d argue that a Kennedy Center presentation of Hat under the Trump regime would eschew “DEI” casting and be all white bread (and minus the drugs and out-of-wedlock hanky-panky). Guirgis wrote his sex farce before Trump’s political ascendency and this current production has nothing to say about the ICE-tapo pigs, militarization of our cities, push towards dictatorship, etc., that we’re currently suffering.

While, as the title indicates, The Motherf**cker with the Hat is full of obscenities and has sexual content (although tellingly never consummated – which is enough to drive anyone to substances) and is therefore not appropriate for children, it is a rewarding theatrical experience for ticket buyers interested in romance, drug/alcohol abuse, adultery, nonwhite characters, and who enjoy great writing, acting – and laughing your ass off. Highly recommended for adults who love a great night at the theater.

The Motherf**cker with the Hat is being performed on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. through August 31 at The Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles, 90025. Reservations are here..