Theatre in Review: Bruise & Thorn (Pipeline Theatre Company/ART New York Theatres)

	Jae W. Brown, Fernando Contreras. Photo: Suzi Sadler

Bruise & Thorn is a glitter bomb of a play, a comedy-melodrama about LGBTQ Nuyoricans from Queens who, pursuing their dreams, get caught up in some wildly seamy doings. It's a fairy tale, really, albeit one that takes in illegal cockfighting, smuggled hormones, sexual exploitation, and a couple of murders -- including one by animal stampede -- before gliding to a happy ending on the stage of America's Got Talent. If the action is sometimes borderline incoherent -- one of my notes simply states, "What just happened?" -- the playwright, C. Julian Jiménez, and the director, Jesse Jou, have plenty of nerve and the talent to back it up.

The title characters are second cousins, allies against the world and sometime antagonists. Bruise, who is gay, takes a protective interest in Thorn, described in the script as gender-fluid and that's putting it mildly. (Thorn's frequent changes of identity leave those around the character flummoxed, grasping for the right pronouns.) The pair has been taken in by Mrs. Gallo, a not-to-be-messed-with widow whose lawful businesses include a halal food shop and a laundromat. When not folding clothing fresh out of the dryer, Bruise studies for his GED, hoping to get into culinary school; Thorn practices rhymes, planning on becoming the next Nikki Minaj.

For now, however, their dreams are on hold: Bruise picks up extra cash by having sex with Mrs. Gallo. (This may be a step up from his previous job, at a shoe store that was a front for God knows what.) Thorn is in thrall to Lizard, a skeevy, knife-wielding thug who insists that Thorn present as a boy; Lizard also has some ugly ideas about making some fast cash to promote Thorn's career. Then there's the matter of that cockfighting ring, run by Mrs. Gallo, with the odds slanted in her favor thanks to plentiful supplies of glycogen used to juice up the animals for their matches. She brings Bruise and Thorn into the operation, which turns out to be a big mistake, leading to a spiraling series of betrayals and deaths.

Bruise & Thorn is a thing of excess -- loud, crude, and violent, its plot sometimes obscured by hard-to-decipher street slang. The script is filled with directions that are virtually impossible to make clear onstage. (One of them reads, "We transition into a Live Halal Food Shop but the world of the play shifts into a Queer ball club." Okayyy...) It's a crime drama crossed with queer fabulousness and a certain frivolousness prevails; in the rush to an upbeat ending, at least one character is killed off without an afterthought. But Jiménez, writes tough, sizzling dialogue, ninety percent of which is not quotable here, and it's hard not to be captivated by his characters as they elbow their way from marginalization to triumph.

Jou stages this wild enterprise with slam-bang conviction that overrules one's objections, even when suavely ushering onstage a flock of stylish, disco-dancing animals. He also has an eye for casting. Fernando Contreras' Bruise is sassy, resilient, and streetwise, providing the action with a sympathetic much-needed center of gravity. As Thorn, Jae W. Brown can be a little hard to hear, thanks to rushed delivery and a thick accent, but the actor also has a keen way with a character who changes alliances and gender representations on a dime. Zuleyma Guevara , who recalls the mid-career Rita Moreno, has a scalding candor as Mrs. Gallo. Carson Fox Harvey is a lowlife out of a Josh and Benny Safdie film as Lizard. That ever-welcome pro Lou Liberatore is almost unrecognizable as Old Fart, the homeless (and frequently incontinent) coot who serves as a kind of Greek chorus.

Jou has also found a team of designers whose work helps to knit the play's sometimes clashing styles and intentions. Sasha Schwartz's gritty laundromat set is given a kind of Fauvist paint treatment, with broad splashes of blue, green, and pink. Harbour Edney's lighting makes creative use of positions, easily shifting from naturalistic washes to dance club glamour. Saawan Tiwari's costumes feel accurate to the characters; the designer also runs riot with animal outfits, especially the chickens amusingly dressed like Roman centurions. Matt Otto's sound design includes street noises, roaring crowds, and an earthquake-like rumble; he also provides the rhythmic beats that keep the energy flowing between scenes. Cesar Valentino's choreography is most notable in the finale, which brings together Bruise and Thorn in a double act designed to push Simon Cowell's golden buzzer.

You can fault Bruise & Thorn for vulgarity and occasional incoherence, but such problems pale next to the production's sheer daring and theatricality, not to mention the playwright's engineering of a double triumph for characters too often portrayed as tragic losers on society's fringes. Pipeline Theatre Company's motto reads in part, "We believe that an unbridled imagination is a force of magic." Jiménez's play has imagination and magic in spades. -David Barbour