Technically, Can I Be Frank?—written and performed by Morgan Bassichis, now at SoHo Playhouse—is a 70-minute solo show. But there are two people onstage: the fiercely funny Bassichis and the (equally fiercely funny) late Frank Maya, Bassichis’ inspiration. “He’s the star of the show, I’m in more of an ensemble role,” says Bassichis, sort of joking, but sort of not.
If you don’t know the performance artist/comic/musician Maya, who died from AIDS-related complications in 1995, don’t worry: You will after Can I Be Frank?, in which Bassichis re-creates material from Maya’s 1987 show Frank Maya Talks. To their credit, Bassichis (thankfully) has no interest in shaming anyone who’s unfamiliar with Maya; their mission is to spread the gospel of Maya far and wide, to shine a spotlight on an artist whose career was cut tragically short. Maya performed at La Mama and PS 122 and other off-Broadway venues, but also at the hugely influential Caroline’s Comedy Club and on networks including Comedy Central; a 1991 voiceover intro on MTV’s Half Hour Comedy Hour called him “America’s only openly gay comedian.”
Bassichis first learned about him while in Sag Harbor, N.Y., for an art residency (“if you’re not familiar with the term, it’s when you go somewhere else to have sex with people”) in a former church (“I was staying in the rectory! So extremely sexual”).
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★☆☆ review here.]
“I got obsessed. And this show is my attempt to try to pass on my obsession to you, to make sure everyone knows the name Frank Maya,” says Bassichis. “And if they have to learn my name too along the way, let go and let god.”
Bassichis does Maya’s Diary of Anne Frank bit—it’s a doozy, especially if you’re a New Yorker—and a monologue in which he completely destroys a just-deceased Liberace, plus one of Maya’s madcap musical numbers “Polaroid Children”: “Why can’t I have polaroid children?/ Children that will develop in front of my eyes in seconds/ So I know right away if I made a mistake/ If I need to shoot again.”
Sam Pinkleton, a recent Tony winner for directing Cole Escola’s downtown-turned-uptown camp-fest Oh, Mary!, helps Bassichis move from Maya’s material to their own seamlessly. (Bassichis: “I get compliments on my appearance all the time, someone stopped me in this neighborhood the other day and goes ‘Sandra Bullock!’”) At times, it’s hard to tell where Maya ends and Bassichis begins.
And though they pretend to be incredibly self-involved (usually for the sake of a punch line) and very concerned with bringing the show to “a major streaming platform”—Bassichis knows it’s about more than them and about even more than Maya. They take great pains to acknowledge theatrical history. “We can honor them by learning just some of the names of the people who were us before we were us.” Among the nearly dozen names he rattles off: transgender stars Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling, playwright/performer Ethyl Eichelberger, artist/set designer Huck Snyder, John Waters muse Cookie Mueller, Iranian experimental director and playwright Reza Abdoh, Ridiculous Theatrical Company founder Charles Ludlam, and more. “We can honor them by memorizing the names of the places they performed and went out, even though we wouldn’t go because we have social anxiety.… We can honor them by just reveling in how f**king derivative we all are.”
Is Can I Be Frank? derivative? Perhaps. But it’s also an ingenious way to pay homage to an underappreciated artist.
Can I Be Frank? opened Aug. 4, 2025, at SoHo Playhouse and runs through Sept. 13. Tickets and information: canibefrank.nyc
