MAP theatre, which produces one show a year, chose to take on Brian Dang’s 90-minute comic horror, a white haunting. Directed by Zenaida Rose Smith, the 3-handed play is energetically performed by Rhys Daly (Tchai), Patrick Tolden (Darren) and Brandon Ryan (the Pizza Person). But energy cannot carry a play, much less a play with as many stylistic and human complexities as this one. Dang is investigating gay male relationships, and how whiteness, white supremacy, and the eroticization of people of color through the white gaze can haunt Asian and Black people as they pursue desire, intimacy and love. I’ve been haunted since seeing the one-act, not by whiteness as a toxic force in our world as was the writer’s intent, but rather by how much this production missed its target.
a white haunting starts during the early courtship between two gay/queer men. Darren is African American (Dang requires that the character’s ethnicity is “Black, African, Caribbean, or African American,” and their gender be “male or non-binary”), and Tchai is Asian (again, from the script, “Asian, Pacific Islander, or Asian American and gender male or non-binary”). It is revealed by Darren that it “means something” that Darren invited Tchai to his apartment, and Tchai confesses it means something to him that he accepted. They flirt, they are charmed, they choose a movie to watch, they order a pizza.
Then everything goes nuts.
The pizza person is a big weird white man without a name. He bursts into the scene with creepy unknown intentions. He leaves and then comes back as the character “Ghost,” swathed in white clothes, white harness, several layers of white gloves, and a white mask that sickly echoes Hannibal Lecter (costumes by Corinne Park-Buffelen). Dang suggests that the same actor can play both the Ghost and the Pizza Person, and that the race/ethnicity does not matter as the ghost’s race “can be hidden.” He makes it clear in the script however that these are two different characters. In this production, it is suggested that the pizza guy turns into the ghost—at least that is how Ryan plays it. This is important, as the ghost is the antagonist in Dang’s play, and becomes the “white haunting” of the title.
It is the specter of whiteness that is centered here, so there are few details about Tchai and Darren’s lives. When the date is hijacked by the ghost, it swerves into a surreal landscape embracing metaphors and actions of brutality, equivocation, torture, racial rage, identity terrors, sexual coercion, and violence. This company is reaching for these complex collisions of racial and sexual horrors without the required craft needed to navigate the terrain of Dang’s language, physicality, and stylistic ricochets between naturalism and tragicomic surrealism. There is a choreographer for intimacy and movement (Jasmine Lomax), and two dramaturgical consultants (Kwesi Phillips and Jordan-Michael Whidbey) but neither they nor director Smith are able to help their actors figure out how to play either the mundane (realistic dialogue, potential lovers flirting, a contemporary setting) or the profane (axe-wielding, fabric wrapped, maniacal funnyman on full-attack mode).
I think comic/horror is the most difficult style to nail. Blood is performed by glitter during the violence in the play, and that was another huge hint about the style that could have been possible. As Jordan Peele’s recent film Get Out brilliantly proved (or perhaps the plays of Joe Orton), this kind of horror cannot be played for laughs; it will be neither funny nor horrifying. Perhaps this is why it feels like each of these actors are in a different play, and rarely, it seems, listen or react to each other.
Ryan, as the ghost/pizza person, parries and thrusts with his different voices and personas as though he is in a running dialogue with his own alter egos. No props, whether toy-like (an axe meant to be deadly, yet so soft it bends when swung), or metaphoric (a beige-pink [read: white], dildo-shaped pistol made of silly putty), made a difference in the acting style—or vice versa (props by Jessamyn Bateman-lin0). Tolden, meant to bring a voice of reason to the world via Darren, though clear in playing his character’s gay identity, is wooden one moment, and raging with manufactured volume at the next. My companion stated that, “Whenever someone yells or screams on stage, and no one else reacts, something is seriously out of kilter,” and her observation was apt.
Rhys Daly is a wonder. At first I thought his character was unfolding to be a study in ADHD-or even that Tchai (short for Tchaikovsky) was on the autism spectrum. Daly is wound tight as a clock, and languages spouts forth from him like a gushing fire hydrant. I wish that the director had drawn this remarkably talented actor to the task at hand, because without a clear objective, Daly was off in Tchai’s own world of fear, anxiety and terror. He seemed to be simulating panic attacks, but the gasping and throttled breathing was terrifying to listen to—as though the actor was out of control. This was not a good thing.
The mainstream world knows very little about the pressures faced within the LGBTQ community as the importance of our various and intersecting identities are carried along with our dreams and desires for love, intimacy and safety. In order to interpret this play, which delves deeply and theatrically into how the toxic power of whiteness haunts at every turn, and which demands the tragic-comic style of surrealism mastered by writers such as Suzan-Lori Parks, the company needed more than good politics and/or AAPI, African American and LGBTQ artists in the company. The actors and/or directors needed a level of craft and expertise of performance style they simply didn’t have.
a white haunting runs through October 22 at 18th and Union. Written by Brian Dang, directed by Zenaida Rose Smith. Starring Rhys Daly (Tchai), Patrick Tolden (Darren) and Brandon Ryan (Pizza Person). Lights by Anna Shih, Costumes by Corinne Park-Buffelen, Sound by Sandra Menjivar. Props are by Jessamyn Bateman-lino the Intimacy/Movement Choreographer was Jasmine Lomax. Dramaturgy by Kwesi Phillips and Jordan-Michael Whidbey. There is no Set Designer listed. Find MAP Theatre at maptheatre.com.