Review: HIR at Unicorn Theatre

Unicorn Theatre bills itself as a venue for "Bold New Plays." Its current production, 2014s "Hir" (pronounced "Here") by the playwright Taylor Mac certainly fits in with that expressed goal. "Hir" premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to generally positive reviews. Half the audience at the Unicorn on last Saturday's opening night gave the play a standing ovation. The content makes me confess to a certain level of mystification.

Please do not interpret my confusion as criticism of performance or production values. "Hir" bills itself as a dark family comedy performed as absurd reality. It is funny in places and tragic in others. It blows up traditional values in favor of being on the leading edge of change. The messages seem to be a demand for radical change and "You can never go home again."

The setup for "Hir" follows:

Isaac Connor (Sam Cordes) returns to his boyhood home in the San Joaquin Valley of Central California after a three-year hitch in the United States Marine Corps; much of it spent in Afghanistan. Isaac pulled one of the nastiest duties conceivable. He served in battlefield mortuary services gathering up dead Marines and their body parts for respectful repatriation to their loved ones. Isaac was caught experimenting with illegal drugs (probably as a release from this terrible duty) and dishonorably discharged from the USMC.

Isaac wants another chance at a normal life. He understands his father, a plumber, is a rough, very flawed individual, but he remembers his boyhood fondly. The family lives in what we now call a starter house in suburbia built on a former landfill, but Isaac's memories of home are comforting after three years in a war zone. Unfortunately, home has changed.

Arnold Connor (Phil Fiorini) has lost his job as a plumber. Arnold was especially galled that his replacement was a woman of Asian descent. His mood darkened. He became domestically abusive and eventually succumbed to a serious stroke that robbed him of most of his ability to speak and the use of his right arm.

Arnold's abused wife and Isaac's Mother, Paige (Carla Noack), grabs an opportunity to revenge the years of Arnold's abuse. Paige mistreats the now disabled Arnold terribly. She dresses him in a nightgown, applies clown makeup and a wig, and feeds him a cocktail of drugs mixed in a blender to keep him helpless. Paige refuses to do laundry, cook, take out trash, and pulls the person who had once been their daughter Maxine public from public school to home school. Maxine, it turns out, is now Max (Ahafia Jurkiewicz-Miles) a transgender individual who insists on being referred to using the pronoun "Ze." The small house to which Isaac comes home resembles something out of hoarder reality TV.

Isaac's reaction to all this is to puke out his guts at every slow motion revelation. His attempt to recapture the home he remembers is roundly rejected by Paige. He is driven to violence and finally out of his family's life.

You have to admire the production from the actor's point of view. The parts are technically well done. The playwright makes a radical statement. Taylor Mac requires a new set of gender pronouns. He prefers the personal pronoun "judy" when referring to himself. Ahafia Jurkiewicz-Miles, the actor who portrays transgender Max Connor asks pronouns referring to Ahafia be they, their, or their's.

If all this seems a bit over the top, it all depends on one's point of view, I suppose. You cannot argue the author's desire to foster universal acceptance, but you can have a problem with his outright rejection of all other world views and the cruelty through which this rejection manifests. Perhaps I don't fully understand the intent. Each audience member will have to decide for his, her, or ze self.

"Hir" continues at the Unicorn Theatre through June 24. Tickets are available on the Unicorn website, www.unicorntheatre.org.

Photos courtesy of Unicorn Theatre and Cynthia Levin.

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