Review: Cliché Identity Crisis from JOHN BAXTER IS A SWITCH HITTER at Intiman

If you're going to tell a story, especially one based on a real event, you need to decide who the story is about, what you are trying to tell and why are you trying to tell it. And those are just a few of the downfalls with the new play from Ana Brown and Andrew Russell "John Baxter is a Switch Hitter" currently from Intiman Theatre.

Based on a true story, gay softball league team the Seattle Fireflies goes up against the champion San Francisco Hornets. But when it's suspected that the Hornets have one too many straight players on their team, the game is halted until they can figure out who should be playing on a gay softball team.

It's a fairly loose telling of "The Crucible" in that it has a witch hunt of sorts but the main issue I have with the play is it's lack of focus and direction of what it wants to tell. Is this a story about Lyle (Adam Standley), the captain of the Fireflies who takes on the "outing" of these straight players as a personal vendetta? Is the story about the eponymous John Baxter (Riley Shanahan), the straight former pro baseball player who just wants to play again? Or is it a larger piece about how a sub-culture longing to belong segregates itself out of spite? I honestly don't know and frankly neither does the play. It really just amounts to a bunch of interesting characters trapped in an unfocused play filled with stereotypical cliché gay jokes and tropes that were old when they were done on "Will and Grace". And if that weren't bad enough, the storytelling aspects of the play lend nothing to actually getting across a clear message. There's the video chat (at least I think that's what it was supposed to be) in the middle of the big game between Baxter and his fiancé for no apparent reason other than to see her in her wedding dress. The interrogation scene which would make sense to be the crux of the conflict that went in circles and ultimately abandoned itself and resolved nothing. And a final series of four tableaus (which took way too long to set up) all featuring Lyle even though only three of them had anything to do with him (in one of them he just sat there silently for some reason) and none of which resolved anything for any of the characters or any of their varied storylines.

The ensemble does a fine job with what they are given and create likable characters. Standley has some beautiful and quite powerful moments during the interrogation. Shanahan turns in a good performance of a man caught between a rock and a hard place. Charles Leggett is wonderful as the aging and cantankerous team manager. Chris Ensweiler is hilarious as the beleaguered league commissioner as is Michael Place as the spiritual new member of the team. And I have to mention Meme Garcia who killed as the team's mascot with her under rehearsed cheers.

And those are just a few standouts of the wonderful performances from this stellar ensemble. Unfortunately Brown, Russell and director Rosa Joshi couldn't figure out which story or message they wanted the cast to tell and without that focus it just amounted to an incoherent mess. And so with my three letter rating system I give "John Baxter is a Switch Hitter" a confused MEH. An interesting tale with potential. If only they knew why they wanted to tell it.

"John Baxter is a Switch Hitter" from Intiman Theatre performs at the Cornish Playhouse through September 27th. For tickets or information visit them online at www.intiman.org.

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