Milk Milk Lemonade

Although Joshua Conkel’s askew serio-comedy about bullying seems to be of this very moment, it actually made its premier a year ago at the little basement theater, UNDER ST. MARK’S. Having just finished a run at the Astoria Performing Arts Center during a fall that had the topic of bullying all over the news, Conkel and APAC couldn’t have anticipated producing anything more relevant. The sad truth is that Conkel’s depiction of a feminine eleven year old boy who is bullied by a tough neighbor boy is a typical experience in some form or another for scores of young gay boys through history. What is so surprising is not so much that Conkel has written a play about the subject, but that the issue of bullying has only just become an openly national discussion. Finally! More productions in other cities are in the works and with the current discourse it is obvious why Conkel’s play dealing with a major topic of the moment would be embraced.

Outside of shining a light on a very serious issue previously ignored, MILK MILK LEMONADE belongs to the Absurdist tradition and a kind of gay camp theatre of yore that was perhaps most developed by the likes of the late Charles Ludlam and lives on with the work of Charles Bush. Men play women and women play men in this theatre world where gender identity is challenged on a variety of levels. The very boyish, but adult Andy Phelan plays our hero, Emory, the eleven year old sissified boy who choreographs to “Anything Goes” and dreams about making it on a TV talent competition from his lonely home on a farm. Michael Cyril Creighton plays Nanna, his chain smoking grandmother who wheels around an oxygen tank and commands poor Emory to act more like a real boy. Which is to say he should toss around a baseball with the rugged delinquent neighbor boy, Elliot, played by the tough as nails (and female) Jess Barbagallo. Elliot harasses Emory relentlessly, having pegged him as gay, though Emory has only just come to realize this truth. Another type of aggression comes out in the form of playing house, which in Emory’s delightful way resembles a Tennessee William’s play and the game develops into sex. Yes the sissy boy might be gay, but so is the tough kid, showing that outward appearances can be deceiving. Elliot over compensates for his gayness while Emory is outwardly expressive through his creative endeavors. Emory’s best friend is a chicken named Linda (Jennifer Harder), whose thoughts are hilariously interpreted by the narrator of the play, Nikole Beckwith. It is part of Emory’s growing up that he must confront the reality that Linda can’t be his pet forever, but that she is actually food and will be processed like all the other chickens.

Jason Simm’s set design looks like a Crayola crayon child’s drawing of a barnyard meant for a children’s morning TV show on PBS. However, thanks to Conkel and director José Zayas, this was one twisted children’s show. After having seen Pee-Wee Herman only days before, I felt I was living in one strange world. Emory’s world is not nearly as enchanted as Pee-Wee’s, but it is just as subversive and appropriately for the theme, rather a nightmare. The hope that emanates from Emory’s awful situation is something like Dan Savage’s Youtube “It Gets Better” campaign, that Emory finds a way to deal with his suffering and lives for his dreams that one day he will indeed escape the horrors of childhood to find out that life will get better.