Addiction and Adultery in the City

‘I mean, what are we - Europeans or some shit?’ cries Jackie, the hot-headed, recently-out-of-prison, honour-bound, macho-man central character of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ 2011 play The Motherfucker with the Hat, making its UK debut at the National’s Lyttelton Theatre. And he’s right. This play, with its screeching city soundscape, larger-than-life characters, and tendency for expletives in every line, positively screams New York City. There are even the iconic fire escapes, hanging over the stage like swords of Damocles, reminding us that this certainly isn’t a European domestic drama.

Motherfucker takes for its set up a classical trope of the theatre: the unfaithful lovers. Jackie, who has recently been released from incarceration for drug dealing, returns to his girlfriend Veronica, excited to be part of the American workforce, when he makes a discovery: someone else’s headwear, and a bed that ‘smells like dick’. This is the catalyst for a series of dramatic scenes, propelling Jackie to the apartment of his AA sponsor Ralph, a man with ‘a PhD in manipulation and self-loathing’, and nearly into the arms of Ralph’s wife, Victoria. After borrowing a gun from a local gangster, and intimidating the ‘motherfucker with the hat’ - which turns out to be a case of mistaken identity - Jackie has to turn to his Cousin Julio for assistance in hiding the weapon.

While on the surface this may seem like an episode summary of a bad TV drama, Indhu Rabasingham’s direction and Guirgis’ script work together to deal with subtler, more powerful issues at hand, for example addiction: Jackie is a recovering user, but still lives with Veronica, an unstable addict he just can’t let go of; Ralph has kicked the habit, replacing it instead with yoga and health drinks; he asks Jackie to make a choice, sobriety or Veronica, but doesn’t see any problem in just taking what he wants, to the detriment of his wife; even Cousin Julio has been treated for sex addiction, something he mentions in a passing comment. The upshot: that everyone needs a crutch to carry on living in an unfriendly city. It’s unclear when exactly the play is set, but Guirgis has clearly taken inspiration from the New York of his childhood, back in the 1980s, when Times Square was hardly a tourist attraction, and Central Park was a no-go zone. This is reflected in the pitch-perfect locations, designed by Robert Jones, which conjure up images of Times Square, Washington Heights, and Hell’s Kitchen. The ingenuity of lighting designer Oliver Fenwick means that the three apartment setting seem to magically emerge out of the darkness, swapping in and out in a complex urban choreography.

Ricardo Chavira, of Desperate Housewives fame, is excellent in his role of Jackie, an internal combustion engine of a man, who manages to convey his desperate need to stay with Veronica. Alec Newman and Natalie Armin make a perfect husband and wife duo as Ralph and Victoria, with Armin acting as a deadpan foil to Newman’s new-age psychobabble. But it is Flor De Liz Perez who steals the show as Veronica; just as capable of delivering a mile-a-minute tirade that would make a sailor blush, De Liz Perez is also able to bring real emotion to the forefront, and the concluding scene is haunting in its emotion. The only off note for me was Yul Vázquez’s Cousin Jackie, who he plays with an odd, stilting delivery; while Jackie’s lines are some of the funniest of the script, Vázquez’s performance is far from naturalistic, which jars with the other characters. The fact that Vázquez is the only cast member to have performed in the original Broadway run only makes this incongruity all the more strange.

The Motherfucker with the Hat is a rare breed of theatre: its delivery is off-the-cuff, with naturalistic (albeit explicit) dialogue that makes the characters stories seem completely believable; but its production is water-tight, with lighting, design, and sound combining to form a convincing, spiky portrait of modern urban American life. While I am sure that some of the subtleties were probably lost on us, a UK audience, that doesn’t stop us from taking a trip to this play, focussing our imagination, and being transported to the hustle and bustle of the East Coast. That is, if you’re brave enough to speak its name out loud.

The Motherfucker with the Hat is on at the National Theatre unti 20th August. Tickets from £15, available online.