The Hat (directed by Roy Antonio Arauz) is an original play by Greg Brisendine about a young gay man named Kevin and his gay dating exploits, which ultimately bring him onto the well-known gay dating app Grindr. Despite being about 40, Kevin finds himself shocked and dismayed at the kind of world online-dating has become for gay men, and he must navigate a series of romantic mishaps with the help of his gay friends, all of whom seem to be part-time relationship counselors, when they aren’t mercilessly making life more difficult for one another.
The actors are quite good. Adam Minton is very funny and charismatic as Kevin the protagonist. Charles Waxberg provides an excellent injection of clipped wit. Gabriel Sedgemore performs very well as well, although I challenge any audience member to assess his acting ability during the scene in which he removes his shirt at least four times. I don’t mean to objectify anyone, but it was a difficult burden to carry as a reviewer; Sedgemore is extremely good-looking.
The play itself seems to be an attempt at many different things. It seems at first glance to be a continuation of Brisendine’s own Bitter Single Guy advice column. But throughout I couldn’t quite get a grasp on what audience this play was really intended for. Many of the cultural references are ones that, frankly, only gay or transgender people stand a chance of understanding, but the play also seems structured to be a kind of introduction to The Gay World for the benefit of a heterosexual audience. This is fair enough, a little Gay 101 can be important for providing context.
Yet, when the playwright quotes on the press release, “This isn’t a story about gay people, it’s about people,” the idea that you’re about to watch a compelling treatment of gay life becomes a bit of a pipe dream. So much of the play was aimed at accommodating a straight audience that one of the essential messages of the play–don’t judge the love lives of others–becomes totally lost. Our protagonist is so shocked and overwhelmed and offended by the perfectly ordinary behavior of his gay peers that the audience is given to wonder if this really was written by a gay man, after all, and not by someone rather more conservative. An example: one character’s arc is structured around a conflict in which he angrily finds out that his partner slept with their mutual friend… before they met. I know a lot of people who would be upset about something like this, but none of them are gay. It made me feel like I was watching a play more aimed at apologizing for my community than shedding light on it, which is a road I’ve been down too many times in gay theater.
That being said, the script contains some gems of what you might call ‘gay wit’ that allow it to harken back to classic plays like The Boys in the Band. I enjoy few things more than watching well-fleshed out older gay characters exchanging rapid-fire repartee. The Hat is consistently laugh-out-loud funny, in part because of Brisendine’s clear natural wit, and in part because of the considerable acting talent. I wanted so badly for this to be a play about the experience of being an older gay man in a community where there exists a deep and often impassible schism between old and young. Yet in an apparent attempt to make the play sensible to a generalized audience, these interesting kernels seemed doomed to lay in the wayside so that a relatably-sex-negative, under-developed younger character can take the spotlight.
The Hat is charming and cute and you’ll laugh. If you’re a straight person curious about broadening your ideas about what gay people are about, this play will be an interesting place to start, bearing in mind that it is only one perspective. If you’re a gay person looking to giggle a little at having your own Grindr experiences reflected back at you on stage in an adorably PG-13 way, you’ll probably enjoy this play too! If you like supporting perfectly charming local theater, please go to this play.
Greg Brisendine’s The Hat was directed by Roy Antonio Arauz and was brought to the Calamus Auditorium at Gay City (517 East Pike St, Seattle) by Gay City Arts and Bitter Single Guy. It runs till 4/9, tickets are available at the door.