Black Swan State Theatre Company is bringing one of the most talked about plays from Broadway to Perth for Fringeworld. Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The MotherF**ker With The Hat focuses on Jackie, a former drug dealer who has recently been released from prison and is trying to fit back into New York city life.
OUTinPerth visited the rehearsal rooms and spoke to Director Adam Mitchell as the cast began preparing.
Are people really afraid of saying mother f**ker?
I think it’s just Australians, the Peurto Ricans and Americans,
it‘s just a part of their everyday vernacular.
I think there were some subscribers who really liked being given permission to say mother f**ker. They’ve been ringing up the box office and asking for some tickets to The Motherf**ker With The Hat and saying it with some vigour and energy. It’s exciting being given permission to be a little bit profane when ringing up ticketek.
What is that intrigues you about this play?
It’s the people, the characters. The playwright is famous for writing really textured layered gritty people and this is his best play. It’s a story about Peurto Rican Americans who are not the kind of people you see on stage, maybe West Side Story, the Jetts vs the Sharks, maybe was the last time Peurto Ricans were on a Broadway stage. .
There is something incredible in the language, it’s almost Shakespearean.
It’s poetic. The profanity in this situation is poetry. The way that they abuse each other and the way they self destruct, it’s all rhythm; it’s all about the fire!
The playwright has been critical of productions that haven’t cast Peurto Rican actors in the roles, in Perth that must be a bit of a challenge.
Of course, the playwright was critical of a production in New York State, let me tell you the Peurto Rican actors weren’t too far away it’s only 45 minutes by train and you’ve got 4000 actors from the New York community. Yeah- he was pissed and so he should be! Coming into Australia and the international productions it’s a different proposition because we don’t have any Peurto Rican actors.
What we do have is a really international interesting mix of actors, Rhoda Lopez is Filipino, which is surprising because there are extraordinary similarities between Peurto Rico and The Phillipines, both over taken by the Spanish, the American influence, both have the matriach in the family that guilts everyone into
doing things.
Austin Casiglione who plays the protagonist, the character who’s trying to make good, trying to stay sober, he’s from an Italian background. Fazil Basi he’s from Lebanaon and Syria. Alison Van Reeken is our token New York white girl, it’s an interesting mix.
In the script there’s an indication of nudity in the play, the original Broadway productions didn’t but later productions have included the nudity, have you decided which way this production will go?
Well for the Broadway production it was probably because they had a star, Chris Rock. It’s difficult, for me someone taking off their clothes in the middle of a play always takes me out of the play. We haven’t decided yet, it’s still a possibility for us, well placed nudity in plays is fine. It’ll be something we discuss as we progress through rehearsals.
