'40 Deuce' gets state premiere Play about 'living on a thread' bows tonight at Network
'40 Deuce' gets state premiere
Play about 'living on a thread' bows tonight at Network
By CHRISTOPHER POTTER
NEWS ARTS WRITER
Annette Madias pulls no punches in describing the play “40 Deuce.” “It is a very controversial show,” she says. “It does have sexually explicit language and sexual situations. There’s no nudity, but you definitely don’t want to bring the kids, or grandma.”
Sage advice about Alan Bowne’s acclaimed yet sordid 1981 off-Broadway prize-winner, which explores the wrenching world of a “family” of male teenage runaways who survive New York's mean streets through prostitution and drug dealing. The play, whose title is street slang for 42nd Street, will receive its Michigan premiere tonight at Performance Network.
“It’s about living on a thread,” says Rick Hudson, one of the actors in the show. “It’s about people who can’t get along any other way.”
“The audience’s initial reaction,” adds fellow actor Rod Moeller, “may be, ‘This can’t be real.’ But it is real. It’s a real eye-opener. And I think the audience will see this, and have to decide afterwards how they feel about it.” Set mostly in a ramshackle Manhattan hotel room, headquarters for the teen hustlers and their only slightly older pimp, “40 Deuce” painstakingly explores its characters’ dark struggle for survival - concluding, says director Madias, that all of us need love and support, no matter how wretched our stake in life.
“There’s a lot of power struggles going on between the boys, but there’s also a lot of caring and a lot of support,” she says. “It really is a family situation. You see how they build their own supports, how they connect, and what happens when one person (through sudden death) is taken out of the group, how that affects their lives.”
Plunging into “40 Deuce’s” urban nightmare wasn’t easy, says actor Duncan Hursley. “It makes you face certain things you wouldn’t normally have to face. In rehearsal, a lot of the work was trying to become comfortable with the script yourself, then trying to make it come across that you are comfortable. There’s a double process going on. The audience will accept it if you accept it.”
“You have to strip away all your defenses,” agrees Madias. “You figure out where the violence is, or how a man can touch a man and feel comfortable with that.” Even so, adds the director, “40 Deuce” isn’t all somber risk-taking. “It’s
very dark, but there’s also a lot of humor in it, some really hilarious moments. I think humor is one of the ways these kids survive. I mean, how do you get through that kind of life without laughing at it?” Do Madias and her cast worry about “40 Deuce" triggering a homophobic response from some audience members? If it happens, it happens, shrugs the director, who adds “I’ve never been so excited about an audience seeing a show.” Besides, she insists, “It’s not a gay play, it’s a play about survival. These kids are not all gay. These are kids who are simply making a living. I hope audience members who are homophobic are going to see beyond that.
“Because it’s really about all of us. It’s not gay and it’s not straight and it’s not bi. It’s just the sleazy part of all of us, the walk-on-the-wild-side of all of us. Ironically, what’s foremost in the play is the incredible innocence of its characters. They’re hustlers and they deal drugs, but they’re still kids. And the pathos of that has, for me, been the best discovery of all.”
NEWS PHOTO • COLLEEN FITZGERALD
'40 Deuce' features, from left, Rick Hudson, Rod Moeller and Robert Peterson.
'40 Deuce' will be performed tonight through Saturday, with additional performances Aug. 28-30 and Sept. 4-6, at Performance Network, 408 W. Washington St. Curtain is 8:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 7:30 p.m. Saturdays. For ticket information, call 663-0681.