Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theatre continues to push the boundaries for North Bay theatre audiences with another provocative production, this time with a show whose title is usually redacted in print. Steven Adly Guirgis’s The Motherf**ker with the Hat runs at The California through February 22.
Guirgis, who won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Between Riverside and Crazy, made his Broadway debut in 2011 with this darkly funny tale of addiction, love, infidelity, and other betrayals that starred Tony-nominated Bobby Cannavale and Chris Rock.
Former drug dealer Jackie (Danny Bañales) comes home to his girlfriend Veronica (Mercedes Murphy) with good news. The parolee has gotten a job and can’t wait to celebrate. While waiting for Veronica to shower, he notices a hat that isn’t his on the nightstand. Worse, the bed reeks of Aqua Velva and… something else.
After a brutally foul-mouthed fight, Jackie runs to the home of his AA sponsor, Ralph D. (Isiah Carter), who takes him in. The seemingly straight-arrow Ralph is all about tofu, yoga, and nutritional beverages. He thinks it’s time for Jackie to move on from Veronica, but Jackie can’t. Instead, Jackie’s got a gun, and he’s going after the motherf**ker with the hat.
Jackie’s Cousin Julio (Sergio Diaz) and Ralph D’s wife Victoria (Grace Kent) are soon involved, and before long, some devastating truths are revealed.
Director Serena Elize Flores has a crackerjack cast at work here. Murphy opens the show strongly with functioning addict Veronica in a funny, one-sided phone conversation with her addict mother. Bañales makes your heart ache at times for Jackie, but he is his own worst enemy. Kent does very well as Victoria, who is as desperate for love as Jackie, and Diaz brings a lot of lightness and laughter to the show with his gym-loving, empanada-frying, Jean Claude Van Damme-emulating Julio.
But it’s Isiah Carter’s Ralph D. who’ll get under your skin. Carter is a dynamic young actor who’s been away from the stage for a few years. Flores has given him one hell of a role with which to return, and he in turn gives one hell of a performance. It is easily the most complex and multi-layered of the characters and Carter plays all the character’s layers of duplicitousness beautifully.
The action is limited to three distinct locations, and set designer Argo Thompson and director Flores utilize The California’s relatively small stage to maximum effect.
The Motherf**ker with the Hat is as adult a show as is produced in these parts. The subject matter, language, and a brief bit of nudity may make some uncomfortable.
Good. These are uncomfortable times.
By the way, who is the motherf**ker with the hat?
Spoiler alert – they all are.
Left Edge Theatre’s ‘The Motherf**ker with the Hat’ runs through February 23 at The California Theatre. 528 7th Street, Santa Rosa. Wed – Fri, 7:30 pm; Sat., 1 pm. $22–$44. 707.664.7529. leftedgetheatre.com
