Audio By Carbonatix
I’ve been working on a list of people or things that Katie McFadzen
possibly can’t play. Here’s what I have so far: a pencil sharpener;
Stalin; a venereal disease. But don’t quote me on any of these, because
it’s likely that next month she’ll show up on a local stage as the
general secretary of the Communist Party. Or chlamydia. And she’ll
kill.
McFadzen can perform anything, and has. In Little Queen,
Guillermo Reyes’ likable new comedy playing now at the Viad Center,
she’s a Mexican mamacita — interesting casting for a white
gal, even one of McFadzen’s considerable talent. Her ecstatically
embroidered performance provides the high points in Reyes’ campy
sitcom, in which she dares the kind of jalapeno-hot hoochie mama once
played by Chita Rivera in a less-enlightened era, when we were allowed
to laugh at ethnic stereotypes simply because they were funny.
So, quite often, is Reyes’ new play, which he’s produced with his
own company, Teatro Bravo, featuring a cast made up largely of actors
more frequently found performing at Tempe’s Childsplay theater. The
story, which plays out like an especially randy episode of Ugly
Betty, concerns a gay Mexican-American teen named Dewey (Israel
Jiménez), who’s obsessed with the Academy Awards and hopes to
win a college scholarship in an Oscars trivia contest. His mother
(McFadzen), is a high-strung nutcake hooked on prescription drugs whose
brother (Ricky Araiza) wants to send her boy to boot camp to turn him
into a heterosexual. Dewey is being stalked by the sophomore who lives
across the street, a nancy boy named Joey (Eric Boudreau) who has
ratted out Dewey’s high school history teacher, with whom Dewey is
having an affair.
Reyes’ writing is smart and fast-paced, and the story’s comic
extremes — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a
scheming, industry-controlling powerhouse; an agency that hands out
college scholarships to kids who can memorize lists of Best Film Oscar
winners — are just plausible enough to seem real. There’s plenty
of commentary about popular culture and a lot of smart dialogue written
for our film-obsessed hero in the overly stylized manner of an old
Warner Brothers movie.
The two young men handle Reyes’ comic extremes with real style.
Their warm repartee makes the bitchy banter sparkle, and director
Andrés Alcalá punches up the tension between them by
staging a delightful visual courtship, even as the pair are
sparring.
Debra Stevens is also in the cast, which — for people who
enjoy watching Stevens and McFadzen perform as much as I do — is
like having Christmas and Chanukah both at once. Stevens may be the
only local actress who can elevate such lines as “The winner of our
competition can’t be illegal, queer, and a top!” and her tart
reading of dialogue like “Maybe in Hollywood, sodomy helps!” makes it
shine.
And there’s Katie McFadzen, who pops pills, chats with the Virgin of
Guadalupe in a south-of-the-border barrio accent, and waltzes off with
the entire production.
