THEATRE REVIEW:
SEX, RELIGION AND OTHER HANG-UPS
8 OCT/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
R: 4/5
Pictured: James Gangl

In a world where personal ads long ago morphed into internet dating, and where people still search for new and more effective ways to connect on the most primal level, writer/performer James Gangl may have stumbled onto the next big thing when it comes to hooking up — a sustained stand-up routine about his struggle to get down and dirty.


But even if it succeeds, don’t look for it to change the face of theatre as we know it. While Gangl’s bright idea has the potential to leave him making out like a bandit, anyone familiar with the ADD effect that massive infusions of testosterone can have on the XY chromosome will know that conventional theatre is probably pretty safe, considering the work that’s been poured into this. 
Gangl’s show — more of an illuminated monologue, really — is called SEX, RELIGION AND OTHER HANG-UPS and, in the wake of outstanding success at this past summer’s Fringe Festival in Toronto, it opened a commercial run Thursday on the stage of Theatre Passe Muraille, where it is slated to play through Oct. 22.


At its most basic, SRAOH is a 75-minute personal ad, in which Gangl rather unconventionally attempts to further his ongoing search for Ms. Right by documenting what proves to be a rather uneventful sexual history for a man whose 20s can only be glimpsed in the rear-view mirror. 
But then, Gangl was apparently something of a late bloomer, a condition he blames on a rather passionate attachment to the tenets of the Roman Catholic faith. In his case, it was an attachment manifested by an intimate knowledge of the church’s pantheon of saints, and by a certain ambivalence toward what have come to be known in polite circles as sins of the flesh — at least those involving other people.


After setting the scene with some charmingly self-effacing chatter, Gangl’s monologue really starts to cook when the aspiring young actor, then in his mid-20s, finds himself cast in a beer commercial that involved three other young men, and three very beautiful young women, one of whom instantly captured his attention.
 Their ill-fated romance begins with an evening of pharmaceutically enhanced conversation, and from there, progresses slowly and painfully as the still socially inept young man overcomes a lifetime’s collection of inhibitions, a penchant for bad poetry and a condition best described as a holy Tourette’s syndrome.


In all, it’s pretty innocent stuff that in today’s world rarely, if ever, crosses that invisible and ever-shifting line that separates the merely risque from the truly rank. In fact, it all comes out as a sort of modern boys’ own version of a Jane Austen novel, ending with something a little more physically engaging than a mere kiss. It’s a story where candour passes for insight, proving conclusively the truth in the old axiom that tragedy plus time equals comedy.


Under the direction of Chris Gibbs, with C.J. Astronomo at the lighting board, Gangl pulls out all the stops, and he turns in a sure-footed comedic performance, rendered even more compelling by a loopy charm and an “everyman” face (to match his walk, it seems). His performance is almost certain to catch attention from the young women in his audience, without threatening the males, many of whom will recognize their own hang-ups in his story.
Like a lot of made-for-the-Fringe offerings, it may not be great theatre, but it is nonetheless, a pretty good time.