Laughing Till You Make Lemonade
Written by Mark Peikert of New York Press
Published September 11, 2009

MilkMilkLemonade is a welcome breath of fresh downtown air. The title comes from one of those old playground rhymes (“Milk, milk, lemonade… around the corner, fudge is made!”) that always left the little boys laughing hysterically while I smiled embarrassedly, but MilkMilkLemonade is the kind of inspired silliness that downtown playwrights usually strain so hard for without achieving.

A no-budget production (“Use your imaginations,” the nervous narrator implores the audience, with a twitch of desperation), MilkMilkLemonade tells the tale of Emory (Andy Phelan), a gay fifth grader whose best friend is a giant chicken named Linda (Jennifer Harder). His grandmother Nanna (Michael Cyril Creighton), who is aghast that her grandson could be a homosexual, orders him to stop playing with dolls and chickens and spend more time with the hyper-masculine Elliot (Jess Barbagallo), whose interests include throwing balls, beating up Emory and setting things on fire.

What Nanna doesn’t know is that Elliot also enjoys playing an extremely detailed version of house with Emory, one that focuses less on homemaking and more on ennui and memories of prom—before a vigorous round of lovemaking. But all isn’t fun and games for Emory. Today is processing day, which means that unless he can hide Linda somewhere on the farm, she’ll be dumped into the machine and spit out as prepackaged chicken cutlets before the sun has set.

The bare bones plot may sound like the sort of tedious exercise in curdled innocence so popular with downtown theater companies, but what elevates MilkMilkLemonade is playwright Joshua Conkel’s eye for the telling detail and pitch-perfect ear for one-liners; I could fill an entire review just quoting my favorite lines. Emory and Linda don’t just chat and share confidences; they practice a hilariously choreographed version of “Anything Goes.” Not to just cover, though—the Harper’s Bazaar version that played under the opening credits of The Boys in the Band. And Elliot, despite his pyromaniac tendencies, has a surprising obsession with dressing up in a tux for the prom in a few years.

As funny as Conkel’s script is (and it’s among the funnier shows I’ve seen this year), director Isaac Butler and his brilliant cast have taken his lines and situations and run with them. If Nikole Beckwith steals the show as the narrator who translates Linda’s clucks into common English, plays the role of Eliot’s parasitic twin living in his thigh and impersonates one very angry and scary spider named Rochelle, it’s simply that she’s less hindered by the demands of the plot. She can be—and is—as outrageous as possible, and scores laughs on practically every line that comes out of her mouth. But there isn’t one cast member who doesn’t seem like a star in the making (a rarity in any production, let alone a downtown one).

Conkel’s best scene just might be his riff on Tennessee Williams when Emory and Elliot play house. Sitting slumped at the window in a pink kimono watching the bug zapper, Emory barely listens while Elliot comes in, guzzling a Capri Sun and complaining about his day. “Funny how I always root for the moths,” Emory says with all the delicate emotionalism of Blanche DuBois. “Don’t go into that light, I think. Don’t do it! And just for a second I think they won’t. Then zap!” What Conkel isn’t afraid to write about in this scene—and throughout the play—is the dark side to childhood, one in which the effects of shitty parents and over-zealously Christian grandmothers leave their marks early and deep. That his characters are gay is ultimately beside the point, though their sexuality brings them more abuse than they might normally expect.

And later, in the play’s dramatic climax, things take a darker turn as Conkel avoids a happy ending (this isn’t a children’s show, after all, despite the primary colors) for one that teaches a painful lesson. Everyone has a place and purpose in the world, and sometimes you can’t overcome your own destiny. But sometimes, you can escape the most immediate dangers.

Butler does allow the play to falter at its mid-point, letting his staging grow a little static (and a late-in-the-show dance number is pointless and strange). But when the writing and the acting connect, as they do for most of the 75 minutes running time, there’s very little better than MilkMilkLemonade anywhere south of 14th Street.

MilkMilkLemonade
Written by Martin Denton of nytheatre.com
Published September 11, 2009

Not to overstate how well-written MilkMilkLemonade is, but it feels like something Edward Albee might have written for a pair of 10-year-old protagonists. Mind you, Joshua Conkel, author of this darkly comic new play, is not Albee; not yet: but he has a unique and remarkable voice and his concerns aren't all that different from what was being investigated in plays like The American Dream and The Sandbox 50 years ago, namely, the festering, melancholy rot that's eating away at the American spirit.

MilkMilkLemonade takes place on a farm near a place called Mall Town, USA, somewhere in the middle of our country—"now-ish," according to the program. This farm is owned by Nanna, a hard-working and hard-luck middle-aged lady who is dying of lung cancer and wheels around a portable oxygen unit, from which she wheezingly inhales between puffs on an omnipresent cigarette. (Subtlety is not the name of the game here.) Nanna raises chickens on her farm, and today the birds are due to go into the "machine," where they will be (allegedly) mercifully slaughtered and processed into sellable chicken parts.

The only other person on the farm is Emory, her 10-year-old grandson. Emory is, as the playwright himself puts it, a “sissy boy”: he likes playing with a fashion doll that he's named for singer Charlene (“I've Never Been to Me”) and on at least one occasion compares himself to Annie (of Broadway musical fame). He wants to leave the farm and go to the City where he instinctively knows he will find other boys like himself. He dreams of winning a TV reality show.

Nanna doesn't really get Emory, and at the beginning of the play she tries to instill some of her values in her wayward grandson: he needs to stop playing with dolls and stop acting like a girl. Maybe he should play with that little boy next door, Elliot, who likes to set fires on his parent's lawn.

Elliot turns out to be as big a misfit as Emory, only lacking the self-knowledge and the confidence that keep Emory afloat. The two are a sad pair of youngsters, victims of the stasis they find themselves in and the provincial attitudes of the grown-ups who are rearing them. With them, Conkel makes important observations about the state of our union.

I almost forgot to mention that Emory's only other friend is a talking chicken named Linda.

Conkel's play is bitterly funny and broadly satiric, abetted in both of these achievements by director Isaac Butler's superbly accomplished production of it. Highly theatricalized design elements (set by Jason Simms, costumes by Sydney Maresca, lighting by Sabrina Braswell, and sound by Butler) create a suitably surreal environment for this crazy story, where a lady in a black leotard translates Linda's clucking into English from the side of the stage and characters are prone to burst into song or dance numbers at pretty much any time. It's an antic, absurdist ambience that keeps us enough removed from the story so that its emotional center isn't unbearably sad and also helps focus us on the troubling way we Americans deal with issues like sexuality, identity, and self-actualization.

The cast is exquisite. Andy Phelan is immensely likeable as Emory, and he and Jess Barbagallo (the young actress who plays Elliot) are very convincing as little boys. Jennifer Harder, brilliantly costumed by Maresca, is splendid as the wise Linda. Nicole Beckwith underplays her various tasks as the (for want of a better term) emcee or interlocutor of the piece, the Lady in a Leotard. And Michael Cyril Creighton gives us a fine comic creation in Nanna, imbuing a character that could simply be a walking sight gag with guts and heart and deep, deep disappointment.

Conkel manages to cover a great deal of ground within this one-act play. He uses pop culture references like a kind of poetic shorthand; it's fascinating that people as different from one another as, say, 10-year-old Emory and, say, me, can parse and process the same random song and movie and TV nostalgia. Here's the common ground of American culture these days. Can this trivia that we share help us understand each other just a little better?

MilkMilkLemonade: To Be Young, Gifted, and Queer
Written by Duncan Pflaster of Broadway World
Published September 14, 2009

Joshua Conkel's brilliant new play MilkMilkLemonade is the hilariously absurd and moving tale of a young boy growing up Gay and artistic in a world that values neither. It's been pointed out before that homosexuals are unique among oppressed minorities in that the oppression comes not just from society but from their own families; Conkel provides a funhouse-mirror view of how legitimately frightening and confusing being a young Gay child can be.

Presented in the style of a children's pageant, with a lovingly detailed painted cardboard set of a chicken farm (by Jason Simms), we are introduced by our narrator, Lady in a Leotard (Nikole Beckwith), to fourth-grader Emory (Andy Phelan), his best friend Linda the Chicken (Jennifer Harder), his cancer-afflicted chain-smoking Nanna (Michael Cyril Creighton), and Elliot (Jess Barbagallo), the rough and mean neighbor boy who secretly appreciates Emory's special magic.

Emory is dying to get off the chicken farm and go to nearby Malltown, USA so he can audition for the “Reach for the Stars” TV show, and thereby find fame and fortune. Nanna crushes his dreams and takes away his glamorous doll Starlene. Meanwhile, it’s processing day for the chickens on The Farm, and Emory is determined to rescue Linda, but he gets distracted by Elliot who wants to come over to play. I won't reveal any of the other breathtaking surprises that unfold, but the script keeps the audience laughing even while plumbing the depths of compassion for the characters.

The whole cast is great: Beckwith presents her Lady in a Leotard as a amusingly timid children's theatre performer- and then takes on other roles as needed, including translating Linda's clucking into human speech and playing a rapacious spider. Creighton (of the Internet sensation “Jack in the Box”) is a hoot as Nanna. Jennifer Harder is glamorous and fun as the doomed Linda. Jess Barbagallo and Andy Phelan both give phenomenal performances as Elliot and Emory- they find the truth of their perfectly-observed characters with pinpoint accuracy.

Isaac Butler's direction is near-faultless, keeping the crazy and wild happenings grounded and meaningful.  There are one or two moments that don't quite work or musical numbers that go on just a bit too long, but the play is a fantastic piece of work. A must-see.

Gays, Grandma, Giant Chicken
Written by Li Cornfeld of Off Off Online
Published September 12, 2009

MilkMilkLemonade, a smart new comedy from The Management, tells the story of Emory (Andy Phelan), an 11-year-old boy growing up on a poultry farm with his chain-smoking grandmother (Michael Cyril Creighton). She wishes he would stop playing with dolls and learn to throw like a boy; he wishes she would turn the farm into a vegan co-op.

Written by Joshua Conkel, The Management's Artistic Director, MilkMilkLemonade is structured like a children's play, complete with a narrator (Lady in a Leotard, played with anxious delight by Nikole Beckwith). "I will attempt to remain as neutral as possible," she tells the audience at the outset of the play, helpfully adding "neutral means boring." Other elements of the play evocative of children's theater include the cheery primary colors of Jason Simm's cardboard set, a giant chicken named Linda (Jennifer Harder, whose emotive clucks are translated into English by Lady in a Leotard), and a couple of enthusiastic dance segments.

In the hands of director Isaac Butler, the play's structural childlike qualities permeate every aspect of the production, to terrific results. MilkMilkLemonade is a gay coming of age story that tackles queerness from the perspective of an effeminate 11-year-old. Under Butler's direction, "childlike" never includes a knowing wink and nod from the grown-up artists. Neither does it devolve into cutesy preciousness. Instead, we are given a comedy infused with all the quiet seriousness and whimsy of preadolescence.

"If people didn't play the roles that god gave 'em," Nana asks Emory early in the play, "what would happen?" Yet for a dialogue that begins with a gloss of Leviticus, their exchange is marked more by familial pouting than by religious solemnity. MilkMilkLemonade is noteworthy for its depiction of a young generation of rural queers. Without making light of the challenges Emory will face as he grows up, it suggests those hardships are difficult, complicated, and surmountable. There is no utopic solution or angry cultural critique.

Anger is largely absent from the play. Linda the chicken is often sad but struggles to accept her chicken farm fate. Although Nana wishes her grandson would butch up, her love for him is as obvious as it is tough. Emory negotiates his desires and social expectations with a hilarious, heartbreaking earnestness. Only Elliot (Jess Barbagallo), a boy who lives down the street and has a penchant for playing with fire, struggles with anger, and he does so directly, imagining, in one of the play's more inventive devices, an evil parasitic twin who compels him to act on his furious impulses and who lives inside his thigh.

As the play unfolds, Emory and Elliot's relationship becomes more complicated than first meet's Nana's eye. Their youthful exploration of homoeroticism is, by turns, terrifyingly destructive and adorably sweet. When they play a game of house that's Tennessee Williams by way of Molly Ringwald, MilkMilkLemonade is at its meta-theatrical best. The boys' game of make-believe trades in gendered cultural imaginaries that expose how normative gender has long served as fantasy. Fantasy: both an illusion and a sexy indulgence.

Make no mistake: MilkMilkLemonade, which takes its title from a dirty children's rhyme, explores its overarching themes (sex, bodies, fate) through playful action, not heady analysis or sentimental preaching. That renders its critique especially effective. This is a play with card-board chickens taped to the walls (a fabulous touch).

If it's worth noting that the play includes cross-gendered casting, it's only to emphasize that this is not drag. Each of the characters is played with unwavering integrity by the talented cast. Phelan and Barbagallo deserve special credit for meeting the challenge of portraying young boys without condescending to their roles. Emory and Elliot are smart and funny, neither too immature nor overly sophisticated. Phelan and Barbagallo do 11-year-olds everywhere proud.

It's tough to be an effeminate boy in farm town. When life you gives you lemons, campy romps and breakout dance segments are still a lot of fun.

MilkMilkLemonade
Written by Jon Sobel of Blogcritics
Published September 18, 2009

One of the funniest shows in town right now is also one of the most searching. Joshua Conkel's MilkMilkLemonade is a rollicking, twisting, and twisted coming-of-age tale that's also, thanks to an excellent cast and Isaac Butler's boisterous, assured direction, pretty slick for an Off Off Broadway production.

The Management has become known as an edgy downtown group with notable depth. Their new production explores being gay in America, but specifically Middle America, and more precisely a chicken farm not far from the implied national nightmare succinctly summed up in the name “Mall Town, USA.” Conkel's script feelingly and humorously explores the relationship between two schoolboys, one effeminate and (mostly) liking himself that way, the other so desperately fighting his homosexual urges that he lashes out in a number of ways: “setting stuff on fire,” getting into fights at home and at school, and punching and kicking the air like Cuchulain battling the waves.

The graceful, plastic, slightly Jim Carrey-ish Andy Phelan is a joy as Emory, who both embodies and explodes the stereotype of the boy who plays with dolls, dreams of singing and dancing on Broadway, and sometimes wishes he were a girl just to make things “easier.” Elliot, the tough kid - coiled with rage, but at heart a romantic with a thing for tuxedos - is played wonderfully by the diminutive actress Jess Barbagallo. She's much shorter than Phelan, and the reverse-role height difference is a constant reminder that what's on the inside is what should matter. Elliot is bitterly ashamed of their sex play in Emory's barn, and it discomfits Emory too, in a different way; Nanna, his grandmother, is constantly trying to "cure" him of his effeminate ways, and his best friend and confidant is not a person at all but Linda (Jennifer Harder), an oversized chicken.

Linda's not a pretend friend, exactly. Though only Emory can understand her clucking, she's known to all, having attained semi-mythical status with the curious Elliot and become a thorn in the side of the impatient Nanna (Michael Cyril Creighton in hilarious drag). Nanna just wants to get her chickens processed and sold, while Emory wants to protect this special chicken from the jaws of the machine; in fact, he wants to grow up and turn the farm into a vegan paradise. How it all ends isn't terribly important; getting there is where the fun is, and there's an awful lot of it - a number of moments had the audience in such stitches the cast had to wait patiently for the laughter to fade.

Meredith Steinberg's energetic and funny choreography deserves mention, and the choices of music are spot-on - how can you not love a show that features “I've Never Been to Me”? And, while the whole cast shines, it wouldn't be fair to skip a mention of Nikole Beckwith, who plays a constantly terrified narrator/chorus figure in a black leotard. Among other things, she provides translations of Linda's chicken-speak in a deadly-funny synthesized-computer voice, plays a creepy evil twin, and dances the part of Elliot's beloved Barbie-type doll.

There's so much to recommend this show, so many show-stopping bits and scenes, that it was standing room only last night at the tiny UNDER St. Marks theater. (Beckwith and Harder's spider scene is not to be missed.) It runs only through Sept. 26, so get your tickets now.

Kiddie Stuff
Written by Elisabeth Vincentelli of New York Post
Published September 18, 2009

By the time I got to Under St. Marks last night, the waiting list to get into "MilkMilkLemonade" was up to 25 people. Quite a feat considering the theater has a capacity of about 50. Clearly the show is on to something. And that something is old-fashioned stuff like, you know, a funny and poignant play, inventive direction and ace acting. In the end theater isn't much more than this, and it shouldn't be any less.

Joshua Conkel's play includes a pair of characters who are in fifth grade but behind the colorful, stylized cardboard set lurks a show about honesty, friendship and heartache. Conkel and his director, Isaac Butler (who also runs the Parabasis blog and -- full disclosure -- has nicely plugged my own blogging on it), have created a world that feels self-contained and of a piece -- even as it touches on various styles of humor, from camp to slapstick -- but also is incredibly open-hearted and generous.

The action takes place on a chicken farm on which 11-year-old Emory (Andy Phelan) lives with his Nanna (Michael Cyril Creighton), who wheezily drags along an oxygen tank while puffing on a cigarette. Emory's best friend is a talking chicken, Linda (Jennifer Harder), who doubles up as a shock comedian, and his best enemy is Elliot (Jess Barbagallo), a little bruiser who lives down the road. Nikole Beckwith, a playwright herself, appears as a narrator, a chicken translator, Elliot's evil parasitic twin and a sassy spider named Rochelle (in a scene that had me in tears of laughter).

That's pretty much all you need to know about the plot. The overall direction Conkel takes is relatively conventional, but only in the broadest sense and only in the grand scheme of downtown liberal theater. It's the skewed perspective that kills in this wonderful show: I kept thinking of an episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse centering on the pains of being pure at heart for little gay kids.

Phelan (who is absolutely extraordinary throughout) and Barbagallo have a wonderful chemistry, and it peaks in the play's most inspired scene, in which the kids play-act a kind of adult domesticity that feels like the cross between "Married with Children" and Tennessee Williams I didn't know I had been waiting for.

Oh yeah, the music is good too: I'm pretty sure I spotted Harpers Bizarre's cover of "Anything Goes," the Balanescu Quartet and the Monks.

Joshua Conkel’s fowl-minded comedy has a gay time
Written by Helen Shaw of TimeOutNY
Published September 18, 2009

You would be forgiven if you react badly to hearing that Joshua Conkel’s bawdy comedy MilkMilkLemonade features multiple dance breaks, a talking chicken, sexually active gay fifth-graders and an extended Tennessee Williams spoof. You would be within your rights to roll your eyes, bemoan the rampant quirkiness of today’s young writers and dismiss the whole dirty doodle as camp: fine for some, but certainly not for the serious theatergoer. You would have sanctimony on your side, but you would also be as wrong as a beakless chicken.

Conkel’s rib-tickler—unfolding on a kindergarten-bright-cardboard poultry farm—knows just how to play with two-dimensionality (a recurring joke is how bad the jokes are) and how to melt our resistance to its filthiness. Despite our best impulses, we find ourselves rooting for nasty neighborhood kid Eliot (Jess Barbagallo) even as he sexually harasses our fey hero, Emory (Andy Phelan). Will Emory get on the talent show Reach for the Stars? Will he defeat his emphysemic, fowlcidal grandmother (a fearless Michael Cyril Creighton) and save the clucker he loves best? We haven’t the breath to worry. By the time the Lady in the Leotard (Nikole Beckwith)—part Our Town stage manager, part parasitic twin—turns herself into a poultry processor, you’ll be so busy apologizing to your neighbor for smacking him during a giggle fit that you’ll be past caring. Conkel and director Isaac Butler are unafraid to go for the belly: They want you laughing, nauseated or both. It’s proof of how desperately comedy needs audacity: Here, as on your average chicken farm, only the plucky survive.

BOTTOM LINE: Gross childhood song. Delicious adult play.
Written by Kitty of Theatre is Easy
Published September 18, 2009

Glittery dance numbers. Talking chickens. A creepy, wheezing grandmother and a thugged-out spider who lives under the porch. This is my kind of show. Watching MilkMilkLemonade is like taking in an episode of Sesame Street hosted by the guy from Blue's Clues singing Schoolhouse Rock tunes while tripping on LSD. Bizarre and beautiful and as poignant as it is silly-hilarious, Joshua Conkel's literary journey through farmhouse frustration en route to gorgeous, glitzy go-getting is both heartfelt and humorous.

Our hero, Emory (the lovable Andy Phelan), is a young man struggling to survive as a sparkling. showbiz-obsessed homosexual in No-where-ville, USA, under the poor and misguided tutelage of his emphysema-suffering Nanna (the disturbingly convincing Michael Cyril Creighton). No one understands Emory's desire to abandon the confines of rural life in pursuit of his dream to become the ultimate song and dance man in the neighboring city of Mall Town. No one, that is, except Linda the chicken (the engaging Jennifer Harder), who also entertains her own dreams of escaping the chicken shredder to become the Andrew Dice Clay of comedic poultry.

As fantastical as some of the script-based elements of MilkMilkLemonade may be, it is the strength and talent of the cast that brings the sparkle and pizazz to this piece. From the narrator, Lady in a Leotard (the wide-eyed and whimsical Nikole Beckwith) to nasty next door neighbor Elliot (the absolutely incredible Jess Barbagallo), the cast commits to each moment and makes each one so real, that as an audience member, one is reminded that those feelings of awkward pre-teen alienation are not so deeply hidden as just below the surface of one's protective adult veneer.

MilkMilkLemonade
Written by Paul Menard of Backstage
Published September 15, 2009

Oh, admit it—you can surely complete the playground rhyme that supplies the title of playwright Joshua Conkel’s queer childhood fantasia, “MilkMilkLemonade.” Yes, as embarrassingly juvenile as those scatological beverages and chocolaty confections may seem, they are fitting for Conkel’s cheeky sandbox of naughty game play.

Relying on a decidedly children's-theater aesthetic (yes, the set is constructed almost completely from corrugated cardboard), “MilkMilkLemonade” tells the delirious tale of Emory (Andy Phelan), an effeminate boy who plays with dolls and dreams of making it big on the TV talent show “Reach for the Stars,” freeing him from his miserable rural existence on his Nanna's poultry farm. His only friends are a giant chicken named Linda—doomed to be processed into cutlets—and his playmate-cum-lover, the pyromaniacal neighbor boy Elliot (a butched-out Jess Barbagallo).

As ridiculous as this may sound, it’s the campy kind of ridiculousness that allows Conkel to delve into the darker side of childhood lurking behind the pastoral cardboard-cutout innocence. Burgeoning gender-play fantasies crash against prescribed societal roles, particularly when Emory and Elliot's game of house transforms into a trailer-park Tennessee Williams scene. But while Conkel giddily flits from theme to theme, one wishes he would tighten the reins on his own writing, opting for a bit more structure than exploration.

But that's where director Isaac Butler and his exceptional cast come in. Except for a few missteps (the production sags in the middle), Butler's brisk direction milks the script for all it's worth. Furthermore, the talented cast serves up scintillating performances that transcend Conkel’s material, most notably Nikole Beckwith as an ill-at-ease narrator. Of course, playing around in the show's naughty dramaturgical sandbox gets pretty messy—but, just like on the playground, sometimes getting dirty is more fun than following the rules.

MilkMilkLemonade
Written by Aaron Riccio of Kül: That Sounds Cool
Published September 17, 2009

In MilkMilkLemonade, neither Joshua Conkel's writing nor Isaac Butler's direction is subtle--and that's a good thing, because the centrally sincere moment is that we ought not to have to hide ourselves. Thanks to some clever costuming from Sydney Maresca, Emory (Andy Phelan) and Elliot (Jess Barbagallo) are able to be at their nakedest, physically and emotionally, when Emory says "To me, I'm not acting like a girl. I'm just acting like myself. So if this is how girls act, then I like it." For those disgruntled few who can't quite stomach that concept, Lady in a Leotard (the outstanding Nikole Beckwith) underscores the sentiment in a comic way: with a mini-guitar.

Everything--from Jason Simms's childish flat of a barn (complete with flaps that show the progression of the sun) to the hand-print chickens that make up Nanna (Michael Cyril Creighton)'s farm, to the fact that Lady doubles as Elliot's evil parasitic twin or even that Emory and Elliot are only in fifth grade (which explains their vivid dream sequences and fragile emotions)--yes, everything is designed to subvert our ideas of "normalcy" so that we can honestly listen, without attaching labels. For instance: "Do any of yous know how hard it is to get up here and take a chance on something? To be your authentic self in front of God and America and all you carnivores?" Honest words, even if they're spoken by Emory's best friend, Linda (Jennifer Harder), a giant chicken who dreams of doing stand-up like Andrew Dice Clay.

In all honesty, things should be this obvious: you act the way you feel, and shame on all the Nannas out there who quote Leviticus to their children and burn their dolls and scowl at their dancing and their dreams, determined that they play the role of "boy," no matter what. So Butler emphasizes Conkel's writing by casting men to play the female (or would-be female) parts and women to play the men, demonstrating that if it's just a matter of "playing" a role, anyone can do it. (Which is not to say that anyone could play these roles: for instance Barbagallo is quite convincing--and a little terrifying--as a bully with some serious transference issues.) He also neatly slides between theatrical styles (as in last year's The Honest-to-God True Story of the Atheist), which lets him poke fun at Tennessee Williams-like stereotypes and break into 30s dance-breaks set to "Anything Goes," which, if anything, should be truer now than it was then.

MilkMilkLemonade isn't subtle, no. But it is clever. In fact, it's so cleverly done that some of the most sorrowful lines--Elliot rolling to one side, dismissing the sexuality he knows he cannot bring up at his own home: "You can get used to anything"--won't even hit you until you one day turn 'round the corner and see the uglier, "grown-up" America where hate is made.