HIR

Every theatre artist, no matter how entrenched in the queer rearguard is entitled to experiment with conventionality. Taylor Mac's "HIR" is that experiment in the zombie genre of the well-made play.

Taylor Mac's body of work is firmly rooted in the drag aesthetic pioneered by Charles Ludlum's Ridiculous Theatre. I greatly admired Mac's "The Lily's Revenge," an extravagant six hours of subversive drag pageantry that stubbornly engaged the queer community. I felt a spark of interest in Mac's departure in style. "HIR" is naturalistic. It's been dubbed "your average kitchen sink genderqueer family drama."

Shame on Tim Sanford for, in the Artistic Director's notes, obnoxiously praising this Playwrights Horizon production as part of a "proud tradition of inviting downtown theatermakers uptown." He is more than a little arrogant in calling this "a defining moment... an affirmation that they (perhaps Mac) have arrived as a playwright." As if the uptown/downtown divide is anything more than pure economics.

As much as I wanted to like it, "HIR" is an unfortunate miscarriage. I can only speculate that the cause of this failure is likely to be the application of the kulturmaschine that Playwrights Horizon offers to downtown performers. It's a sausage making enterprise that grinds down the lumpy indigestibles for the Playwrights Horizon audience. The result is a blatantly misogynist revenge fantasy at cross-purposes with itself as it curries empathy for a racist, abusive white cisgender dad, Arnold. This unlikely feat is perpetrated by the only female character, Paige, Arnold's wife and Isaac and Max's mom.

Paige is the vengeful matriarch who exacts payback on the father for a lifelong history of domestic abuse. Arnold, a stroke victim, suffers feminizing interventions with which any transwoman would be familiar but function here as a form of humiliation. Paige force-feeds her husband estrogen (an appalling transmisogynist joke) dressing him in women's clothes, and a rainbow Afro wig and applying heavy makeup. He is forced to sleep in a cardboard box in the family living room. Paige formally rejects housework on political grounds, forcing the family to live in squalor. "HIR" is one tedious lesson in gender theory, mouthed by robots, taken to the extreme.

Max, the putative genderqueer character spouts theoretical banalities that Paige has uncritically accepted as the new gospel and is hell-bent on practicing. The eponymous "hir" is a stereotypical trans-masculine teen, bouncing off the walls from testosterone, and boasting about hir orgasms. Max doesn't work. Seems horribly merged with monster Mom, and doesn't question the abuse of Dad.

This nightmarish status quo is challenged when Isaac enters, returning from military service. His father's son, he immediately reacts by vomiting: at the shithole of a home, his father's torture, and news of his sister's transition. His spasms subside momentarily and he learns that his Coming Home fantasy is a bust. The home he once had is extinct in every sense of the word.

In response to his rageful protest, Paige declaims that there is a new world, he is part of the old one, and he must adjust. This new world as described by this grossly exaggerated caricature of female power (who resembles no one that I know in real life) is one in which the gender binary no longer exists. Yeah, well, I say if this is a harbinger, run for the hills. As presented in "HIR" no one would want to live in this universe. The genderqueer community doesn't need an unhinged character to create its utopia. Paige is clearly unhinged.

Isaac's constant vomiting is comical but his reaction pretty sums up this reviewer's. I think the aspect of this play I find most offensive is the matter of fact style in which a character is tortured.

Mac can't be faulted for reaching for the brass ring. Or maybe Mac is indifferent to that mainstream accolade and just wanted to fuck with the mainstream. I look forward to that play. The genderqueer community doesn't need any favors bestowed on us by places like Playwrights Horizon. #notinmyname.

The cast of "HIR" features Kristine Nielsen (Paige), Daniel Oreskes (Arnold), Tom Phelan (Max) and Cameron Scoggins (Isaac). The production features scenic design by David Zinn, costume design by Gabriel Berry, lighting design by Mike Inwood and sound design by Fitz Patton. Direction is by Niegel Smith.

"HIR" runs through Jan, 3, 2016 at Playwrights Horizons Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, 416 West 42nd Street. For tickets or information, call 212-279-4200 or visit http://www.playwrightshorizons.org (