STAGE REVIEW : Hodgepodge on Gays, Lesbians

Two males and one female provide perspectives on gay and lesbian life at the Sushi Performance Gallery stage this weekend.

The pairings, in two separate sets on the same bill, form an unusual program that doesn’t quite work.

New York performance artists Chazz Dean and Kurt Fulton open the show with “2000 Questions,” then break for excerpts from Monica Palacios’ one-woman show, “Latin Lezbo Comic,” then they return, following an intermission, to present “Sodomite Warriors.”

Part of the problem lies in the extreme differences between the work of Dean and Fulton and that of Palacios. Despite the individual merits of each piece, the rhythm and the style of one undercuts the other, breaking up the mood and destroying any possible overall flow or build to the evening.

The most accessible of the evening’s works is “Latin Lezbo Comic,” in which Palacios, a California artist, cuts loose with raucous and direct tales of her life. She is terrifically funny about her struggle to come out in her Catholic Mexican-American household. Recalling the time that she first brought the woman she loves to a family meal, she acts out the thoughts of each of her family members at the table, including her mother’s “Por favor, let them bring men home to dinner. . . . We don’t want to march in that gay parade.” She also gets laughs playing the Don Juanita luring women into her “girl trap” and portraying her life as a waitress trying to liberate her female patrons into giving her their order directly instead of through their men.

Palacios deserves billing with other comics--gay or straight, men or women. Although the source of her inspiration is very particular--the Latina lesbian experience--the impact of her humor is definitely universal.

“2000 Questions,” on the other hand, is a thoughtful but rather opaque piece written by seven authors, including Dean and Fulton. It is not the ideal opening act for humor.

The pair dance with staccato, machine-like gestures to a taped litany of American life, from news about abortion rights, arm sales by America to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, to how many Big Macs will be consumed by the year 2000. They break to talk, sometimes in unison, sometimes in counterpoint, about homophobia, charge cards and Abraham Lincoln, ending with a dark vision about the ultimate curtailing of freedom in America.

“Sodomite Warriors,” written and performed by Fulton and Dean, is much clearer than “2000 Questions,” but also is serious. In the same way that Palacios’ work doesn’t benefit from following “2000 Questions,” “Sodomite Warriors” is undercut by following the broad humor of “Latin Lezbo Comic.”

In a series of seven vignettes, some of them standouts, Dean and Fulton talk and dance with athletic grace and vigor through a variety of scenes from the gay male experience. The most powerful of these deals with the pain of listening to gay stereotypes--as in “When you come over today, please don’t act too gay in front of my parents.” Then they take the emotional pain and make it physical as they mime being the victims of gay bashing (an experience Dean and his lover reportedly lived through just a few years ago).

It’s a shame that both the transcendent dramatic moments offered by Dean and Fulton, and the funny ones by Palacios get lost in this unstructured grab-bag evening.

Both deserve better.

“2000 QUESTIONS”

by Chazz Dean, Kurt Fulton, Kim Knowlton, Melanie Monios, Iris Rose, James Siena and Maggie Siena.

“SODOMITE WARRIORS”

by Chazz Dean and Kurt Fulton.

Both shows performed by Chazz Dean and Kurt Fulton.

“LATIN LEZBO COMIC”

written and performed by Monica Palacios.

At 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday at Sushi Performance Gallery, 852 8th Ave., San Diego, 235-8466.