Chris Craddock (the clean-shaven one) and Nathan Cuckow in “Bash’d.” Photo: David Morgen.
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By Jonathan Warman
Friday, June 27, 2008
You can tell “Bash’d” is going for something different just by its subtitle, “A Gay Rap Opera.” Now there are gay rappers such as Cazwell and Johnny Dangerous, and I think I’ve seen some gay subplots in shows at the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival that Danny Hoch founded. I can’t think, however, of another hip-hop show that is this gay, gay, gay.
Like Cazwell and Dangerous, “Bash’d” plays the comedy inherent in appropriating a usually homophobic medium for decidedly queer uses. But also like those other two artists, this show’s creators also make shrewd use of the music’s aggression, anger and brash sexuality.
In “Bash’d” we meet Jack and Dillon (Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow), a young gay couple who meet, fall in love and get legally married (the show is set in Canada, where it was created). The duo tell their story through clever rhymes laid over pop-culture beats, playing all the characters, including the narrators, themselves. It’s in this first part that we find most of the light-hearted comedy. Eventually, though, our heroes struggle to deal with hatred when one is brutally gay bashed.
I admit that I haven’t been a big hip-hop fan, having become disenchanted with it in the late ’80s, around the time that gansta rap appeared with its murderous homophobia. Still, I’ve always hoped that the revolutionary potential in the work of, say, Public Enemy, could be harnessed in a gay-positive way.
That’s pretty much exactly what the less-comedic second half of “Bash’d” does, ending in a howl of anger at lives lost to anti-gay violence. It’s melodramatic but very effective—this show faces down the bashers and hits back hard with all it’s got.
“Bash’d,” 8 p.m. Mon., Thu. & Sat. and 7:30 p.m. & 10 p.m. Fri. at The Zipper Factory, 336 W. 37th St., $25-$75, 212-352-3101, thezipperfactory.com.
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