Julian Christopher’s Bundle of Sticks is, without doubt, some kind of whopping curiosity. Don’t expect to see its like any time soon. Or maybe in these wild and wooly gender-shifting days something just as bold-faced will turn up in quick time.
Until then, Bundle of Sticks will do quite nicely, thank you very much. When it begins, audience members, who may have already examined pertinent lobby artifacts, will find themselves observing five subjects undergoing Global Conversion Therapy at a place in Coober Pedy, Australia known as The Sticks. They’re experiencing it under the direction of the stern, inflexible, angry Otto Nairn (Laura Jordan).
These are homosexual men who have decided they want to go straight. That’s to say, four of them do. A fifth has only signed up to talk a boyfriend out of the transformation. Nevertheless, he goes through the procedure for as long as it continues—but fighting it every step of the way.
You who are reading this review have likely assumed that Bundle of Sticks is played by all all-male cast. That’s as much as you know. Actually, this is an all-female cast (or appears to be, as sometimes these days we may be wrong to assume the pronouns any particular individual wants applied to his or her self.)
Anyway, the cast members don’t, on the audiences’ encountering them, seem to be male-identifiers. When they strip to their supposed nakedness (they wear flesh-colored tops with Valentine hearts for nipples), they’re outfitted with rainbow-hued male genitals of various sizes, one set especially eye-popping that belongs to the quintet’s Greek member (no pun intended).
In this group guise, Otto—the descendant of the Sticks founder is also eventually “stripped naked”—a series of tests unfold. Some of the participants try harder than others but still resist as the process extends. Tyree (Hope Ward) even talks about female lover Samantha while boyfriend Gemi (Zo Tipp) attempts to talk his ardent lover out of that phase.
Gemi doesn’t have much trouble at the task. During the two-act work, he and Tyree find an opportunity to have sex and throw themselves into it. So do Abram (Fleece) and Gregos (Lucille Duncan), who’ve just met but are immediately attracted to each other. Another hard-to-crack nut is Francisco (Melissa Navia), who is undergoing the Sticks therapy for the second time. He does succeed at finishing a “gonads” exercise but still holds forcibly back from complete Otto Nairn acceptance.
Of course, Francisco and the others are vigorous nay-sayers. Were they not, they would be endorsing conversion therapy, and who these days with any understanding of psychology—surely in the gay community—would endorse such a development?
Not a soul. Indeed, what needs to eventuate in Bundle of Sticks is that leader Nairn—who gives an opening lecture about prehistoric man and his hirsute masculinity (illustrations included)—is shown up for the pretender he is. Needless to report—no real spoiler follows—Otto Nairn’s overdue comeuppance occurs.
In other words, spectators exposed to the unusual work know where it’s going from the outset and have to sit through a lot of it that eventually takes up too much repetitive time. This, while, Gemi, wearing what looks like a serpent’s head, occasionally snakes around to make an ultimately elusive point.
About Bundle of Sticks it can be said that Christopher’s choice to present it in the cross-dressing way (which production designer Meghan E. Healey creatively realizes) is amusing. It has the effect of breaking down gender boundaries during the pressing #MeToo period that’s rapidly calling for an #MenToo equivalent. The playwright is also making a plea for acceptance of who we are as well as making a request for acceptance of who others say they are. What these days could be more in synch with the times?
Under Lou Moreno’s fearless direction, the cast is extremely good. The demands on them are not your average garden variety requests. It could be that they’ve accepted their roles for the fun it would be provide them. They all give the impression of having a swell go.
Chelsea Pace is the Bundle of Sticks intimacy coach, and perhaps when intimacy coaches are being added to staffs right and left, no production calls more fervently for an intimacy coach than this one. How so? Use your imagination.
Bundle of Sticks opened March 2, 2020, at Intar Theatre and runs through March 22. Tickets and information: intartheatre.org
