Playwright Donald Jolly takes us back to 1950s Baltimore via Ancient Greece in Baby Eyes, a Playwrights’ Arena World Premiere that scores points for ambitious intentions if not for its campy mix of ancient myth, Greek tragedy, ’50s melodrama, and men in drag.

 A trio of lean-muscled “sissy sirens” introduce us Greek Chorus-style to 14-year-old Gio (Rudy Martinez), “a boy with an aching flame in his belly and his eyes, hungry for a friend” who may just have found what he’s been looking for in Highland Hill newcomer Tremaine (Melvin Ward), “a colored boy with fat lips who could rip you straight down the middle.” (The sirens’ words, not mine.)

 Fortune (good or bad, you be the judge) introduces this “god passing through, not from these parts, who needed a place to lay his head” to the bullied Gio, bruised, bawling, and bleeding from a recent run-in with three town toughs, in an abandoned YMCA one hot Baltimore night, and despite never having seen a “Negro” up close, Gio takes immediately to the kind, gentle, sexy-as-all-get-out stranger.

Before long, the Shakespeare-quoting Tremaine has begun giving Gio boxing lessons, leading the boy to believe he might one day, like the men in the beefcake magazine he keeps hidden from his macho Italian dad, go out and “slay those wretched fiends,” presumably in a posing strap.

 If it’s not already clear, Baby Eyes alternates between the campy (think John Waters in Cry-Baby mode minus the wink) and the stilted (think any Greek tragedy translated into “contemporary” English), making it difficult for director Jon Lawrence Rivera’s all-male cast to deliver authentic, multifaceted performances with lines like “My old man told me not to monkey with those rough boys, but the problem is they like to monkey with me,” “All people that are kind and decent are tops in my book,” and “Zeus, he’s one hep cat.”

Not that Baby Eyes is ever boring.

A “Boys Beware” lecture warns incoming high school freshmen to watch out for “that insidious menace to all forms of moral decency, the homosexual.”

Gio’s Italian-American dad Salvatore (Ted Monte) attempts to clue his son in on “broads and sex,” counseling him not to do it with “colored chicks” since these are the most likely to give him the clap.

Tremaine pretends to be broke so as not to have to pay his landlord (coincidentally Gio’s dad) before receiving a package from his own father containing a passport and one-way ticket to France, a trip that would necessitate leaving behind a girlfriend and the child he has fathered.

 As for the object of Gio’s affection, exactly what his feeling for the obviously smitten lad (Ganymede to Tremaine’s Zeus) remains frustratingly ambiguous, though not nearly as unclear as what transpires in concluding scenes that might make sense to Greek scholars but only served to confuse this reviewer.

 Having sissy sirens Jason Caceres, James Kaemmerling, and Dennis Renard play female characters—Gio’s Jewish mother, Tremaine’s Southern belle sweetheart, and a nightclub chantoosie in Billie Holiday mode—in addition to their roles as Gio’s unison-speaking tormenters may carry on Greek theatrical tradition but here it comes across more Kids In The Hall than Sophocles, Aeschylus, or Euripides.

Director Rivera shows his accustomed visual flair, aided by Christopher Scott Murillo’s simple but effective set, Brad Bentz’s vivid lighting, Mylette Nora’s ’50s-appropriate costumes, and Katerina Pagsolingan’s scene-setting projections, with sound designer Jesse Mandapat providing an evocative soundscape throughout.

Unfortunately, crowding the audience into as many straight-back chairs as can be squeezed  into opposite sides of the stage leads to as uncomfortable seating as I’ve experienced in L.A., in addition to making it impossible for a simulated blowjob to be staged with any degree of verisimilitude, though Edgar Landa does merit high marks for some stabtastic fight choreography.

 Baby Eyes is produced by Henry “Heno” Fernandez. Literary manager Adrien Centeno is dramaturg. Letitia Chang is stage manager. Casting is by Raul Clayton Staggs.

As always, Playwrights’ Arena deserves snaps for its mission of “discovering, nurturing, and producing bold new works for the stage, written exclusively by Los Angeles playwrights.” A bold new work Baby Eyes may be, but that’s about it.

Playwrights’ Arena @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village.

–Steven Stanley
October 15, 2018
Photos: Playwrights’ Arena

Tags: Donald Jolly, Los Angeles Theater Review, Playwrights' Arena