In the midst of our current national discourse on white supremacy, Fake Friends, a new theater and media collective, wants in on the conversation. Circle Jerk is described as “a queer comedy about white gay supremacy.” Right from the start, we travel to Gaymen Island where gospel is made out of conspiracy theories.
The end of the world happens at the end of this piece. That is not a plot spoiler since it is announced up front during a prologue of sorts. Circle Jerk is a multi-camera live streamed performance that “investigates digital life and its white supremacist discontents.” You can interpret that to mean there are some bitchy characters. This comedy aims to be realistically conceived but in a farcical world. That viewpoint is accomplished.
Laugh lines and witty repartee, alongside slings and arrows, drive the humor here. The work lands firmly in the zone between Highbrow Raunch and Standard Smutty Drag Show with Thematic Ambitions. One man muses, “If I like butts why can’t I like vaginas.” On a more serious note: “The art of housekeeping is a long lost art.”
The plot is all over the place and perhaps that is the point. Two white gay internet trolls hatch a plot to take back what is wrongfully theirs. The world created is hyper-exaggerated and aggressively sophomoric. Hilarious asides pop up almost out of thin air. Gay men born after World War II are “absolute trash.” The goal of this work was a “homopessimist hybrid of Ridiculous theater and internet culture.” Ridiculous is certainly achieved.
Who’s dating who and who’s not dating? Replace dating with “sleeping with” creates tensions. Conservatives and liberals mixed in unhealthy ways. Jurgen the evil one screeches “Oh my God, there’s a liberal in my living room.” While gay men are the subject matter here, one considers the sisterhood. “What about the lesbeyoncé’s?”
Some of the political barbs are especially fun. One of my favorite jokes was “method acting and fake news have the same name: Russia. A potato-like troll comes in and out to wreak havoc and also confuse the proceedings as the internet hackers do in real absurd life.
Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley wrote, directed and starred in this show. The show also features Cat Rodriguez and was co-directed by Rory Pelsue. The appeal of doing the outlandish is readily apparent. These three actors get to play nine characters in a live streamed event. That happens fairly smoothly despite some overlong interludes. Alaska Thunderfuck 5000’s song “Your Makeup is Terrible” just made me smile with its tagline, “but I love you anyway.”
This chaotic event is certainly theatrical and firmly plants its flag in over-the-top. That is both a good thing and a hindrance. A little more focus and editing might make the oddball parts coalesce with the more biting and semi-serious observations about our world that they are lampooning.
This show is not for everyone but it’s reach could be broader. We are asked to imagine a world where gay people are 90% of the population. Now there’s an idea worth spending some time laughing about for more than a second or two. In a celebration, fire hydrants spray vodka sodas. That’s a great joke.
Circle Jerk is an amusement today for fans of this type of humor. There is upside potential, particularly if the upcoming election goes a certain way. We’ve been warned: “first they come for the comedians…”
Circle Jerk is live streaming through October 23, 2020.