THE BOTTOMING PROCESS

Nicholas Pilapil’s The Bottoming Process may start off as an engaging contemporary gay romcom in the same vein as Fire Island and Bros but what it ends up being is a playwright’s rancor-fueled diatribe.

Audience members can be excused for assuming that protagonists Milo (George Salazar), 29, an aspiring Filipino-American writer, and John (Rick Cosnett), 42, a hugely successful Caucasian writer of YA fiction, are on the way to the kind of happily-ever-after ending that left Fire Island and Bros audiences with great big smiles on their faces.

After all, couples don’t meet any cuter than these two do, nor does snappy patter come any funnier or flirtier or cleverer or more deliciously biting than the twosome’s romantic banter in their initial scenes together.

Milo may not be the first Asian whom John has dated (though a later scene makes it clear that he’s far from being a “rice queen”) but dating a white guy is virgin territory for Milo.

That doesn’t stop him from being quickly smitten with the hunky older man, and before you know it, he’s moved into John’s spacious L.A. home, has eagerly signed a book deal with John’s Indian-American literary agent Charlie (Anisha Adusumilli), and seems thoroughly content with his new life, especially when his collection of essays actually gets published.

John’s own writing, on the other hand, seems to be going nowhere. Studios are passing on the sequel to the film adaptation of his first novel and critics aren’t loving the latest installment of The Circus Freaks Saga, which is why Charlie suggests that John “write something personal, from the heart,” i.e. a love story inspired by his relationship with Milo.

Unfortunately for Milo and John, this is when cracks begin to form in their relationship.

It’s also where playwright Pilapil turns The Bottoming Process into a bitter invective against the fetishizing and feminizing of gay Asian men, something that might hit the mark if John had shown any indication of being attracted to Milo because of his race, or if Milo hadn’t eagerly accepted John’s help in finding an agent or his invitation to cohabitate in John’s ritzy home, or if he’d even once broached the subject of John’s never having asked Milo to top him, assuming his being Asian to be the only possible reason an older, more successful, taller, buffer, more masculine man might be accustomed to taking on the active role in bed.

It’s hard for this reviewer to sympathize with a man who belittles John’s decades-long estrangement from Christian parents who rejected him for being gay simply because Milo and his own family had serious troubles of their own.

And Milo’s insistence that John has no right to write about their relationship would make more sense if John were writing from an Asian-American point of view (there’s no evidence that he’s writing from any POV other than his own), or if the literary agent who deems it John’s best work ever weren’t Asian-American herself, and therefore someone who would have made it her business to tell John if he was, as Milo insists, guilty of cultural appropriation.

All of this makes it impossible for me to recommend The Bottoming Process, despite its thoroughly delightful first hour or the stellar performances being delivered by Salazar, Cosnett, Adusumilli, Julia Cho as Milo’s Korean-American bff Rosie, and Ty Molbak as Rosie’s boyfriend Daniel and a gay hottie named Cody.

Director Rodney To merits high marks for eliciting these acting gems, though I do wish more attention had been paid to ensuring unblocked sightlines. (Since many scenes have characters seated on low sofas or even the floor, the Renberg Theatre’s only slightly raised stage and only slightly raked seating does the audience no favors.)

On the plus side, Christopher Scott Murillo’s set, Elena Flores’s costumes, Josh Epstein’s lighting, Nicholas Santiago’s projections, and Michael O’Hara and Rye Mandel’s properties give The Bottoming Process a Grade-A look, and Jeff Gardner’s sound design provides a hip musical soundtrack throughout.

The Bottoming Process is presented by IAMA Theatre Company and Los Angeles LGBT Center.

Adrian Gonzalez is associate director. Carly DW Bones is intimacy director. Lars McCuen Van is production stage manager and Quinn O’Connor is assistant stage manager. Casting is by Jordan Bass. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

Chanté Boswer, Kurt Sanchez Kanazawa, Michael J. Lyons, Tim Kopacz, and Amanda Suk are understudies.

There’s nothing more disappointing than a play that starts out a winner and ends up leaving a sour taste in the mouth, but for this reviewer at least, that’s what happens with The Bottoming Process.

IAMA Theatre Company at the Renberg Theatre, Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood.
www.iamatheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
May 18, 2023
Photos: Jeff Lorch

 

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