The Motherf**ker With The Hat

Overview

New York playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis of the LABryinth Theatre Company is notorious for documenting the lives of the sharp-tongued yet good-hearted down and out; sympathetic adult characters who struggle to put away childish things. His seventh full-length play, The Motherfucker With The Hat (2011), keeps up with tradition and is all-American in the best possible way: brash, deftly paced, brazenly funny, as subtle as a brick and only meaningful in hindsight.

The five characters all battle addiction to various substances, legal and illegal. Leading man Jackie (Calum Gittins) is fresh out of prison, off the sauce, re-united with high school sweetheart and cokehead Veronica (Saraid Cameron) and about to join the great American workforce. His AA sponsor and confidante is the smooth-talking, sanctimonious Ralph D (Fasitua Amosa), who's swapped the beersies for kale smoothies and is revealed to be the titular motherfucker with the hat. His long-suffering wife Victoria (Andi Crown) is sick of Ralph's bullshit and kicks the story into gear when she tells Jackie that he's been banging his lady. Cousin Julio (John Tui) plays the campy wise guy, dispensing advice and empanadas like they're going out of fashion.

The minimal plot (Jackie finds out, Jackie confronts Ralph, Jackie breaks it off with Veronica) lets the dialogue, which is immensely witty and quotable, shine. Veronica gets the best one-liners by far - she's a hot, sassy mess telling it like it is (in a phone conversation with her mother, whose new boyfriend's face resembles that of a fish, she asks "Do you wanna fuck him or fry him up with a little adobo and paprika?"), who genuinely loves Jackie and seems to hate Ralph - one can only assume she had sex with him to punish Jackie for landing himself in jail. "You fake AA motherfuckers make me sick", Veronica spits at Ralph. "Y'all all the time preaching honesty and selflessness, meanwhile y'all more dishonest and selfish than half of C block at fuckin' Rikers."

Moral relativism and the all-too-common discrepancy between practising and preaching are at the heart of the play, and what you'll be talking about on the drive home. Jackie slept with his previous AA sponsor - so is it okay to cheat on your partner if they've cheated before? In an emotionally raw scene, Victoria unsuccessfully attempts to initiate revenge sex with Jackie ("What are we, Europeans or some shit?" he asks as he buttons up his jeans) - so is it okay to sleep with someone's lover if you know they're sleeping with yours?

Jackie and Ralph are two finely drawn characters. We all know a Jackie - he's the sweet but self-destructive kid who fell into the wrong crowd and was dim-witted enough to get caught. "Even though we're fucked up, we got a code", a distraught Jackie tells Ralph. "It's a fucked up code, but it's still a code." Sure, he's no paragon of virtue, but he's got some standards and is certainly a shade less shady than Ralph. Ralph is the worst sort of person - smug, homily-spewing, and condescending; someone who needs to be taught that charity begins at home.

Apparently, the entire cast attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings to gain an understanding of the nuanced relationships between recovering alcoholics and their sponsors (and how they play out in the real world). This paid off - the dynamics between Ralph and Jackie are painful to watch but on point.

Another fun fact from the pamphlet: the word 'fuck' is uttered 257 times (at an average of approximately 200 decibels). This is my only gripe with the play - the relentless shoutiness. A little more white space, so to speak, would have let the audience catch their breath and each pearl of profanity-laden wisdom.