This is a blueprint of how to do a confessional solo show the right way.
It could have been self-indulgent. It could have been prurient. It could have been insular. It could have been off-putting.
It was none of these things.
Dan Bernitt recounts portions of his young life in which he does stupid things for stupid reasons and he doesn’t let himself off the hook, and he doesn’t expect us, too, either. That’s part of what makes it so human, so universal, and so funny.
At one point, partway into the program, he recounts a one-night stand in a poetic section of spoken word that is specific and sensual in language and movement without being pornographic. This immediately leads into a very amusing sequence when the infection of the title makes its appearance.
Dan creates a wide range of other characters who cross his path during his early college years - his first roommate
(and the roomie’s homophobic parents), several quite different boyfriends, a female collegiate partner in crimes of the heart, a doctor, and many others. Each of them is brought to life with humor and compassion. No one is painted as a one-dimensional enemy. Even the boyfriends who break up with him and the people who look on him with judgment are drawn with
an understanding and sympathetic eye. It is a richer collection of living portraits because of this, and the audience is allowed to draw its own conclusions, rather than be force fed Dan’s singular point of view. In this way, we are enlisted as partners in the story, rather than simply passive voyeurs.
Love and lust are both blind, and his vision is just as impaired as the rest of ours. Dan freely admits this. He admits to being afraid of sleeping alone, of being alone, and that this has driven some less than stellar decisions in his personal life.
But in the process, he comes to a clearer vision of what he really wants out of life - both by himself, and in partnership with someone else. Dan’s performance and description of the different stages of love and infatuation will seem very familiar, because - if we’re lucky - we’ve all been there. This is a great example of the specifics of one life tapping into the fullness of human experience - whether that human be gay or straight.
It also gives the audience a window into exactly what it’s like to live as a young gay man, and to sometimes feel like you have to hide who you are, no matter how comfortable you are in your own skin. In doing so, it ties those feeling of being
the outsider, the different one, to the common feelings we all share.
Dan’s deep voice and easy performance style move seamlessly from the comic to the melancholy and back again.
He’s honed this script and his presentation of it in several Fringes before reaching ours and it shows. With just a couple of chairs, a handful of simple sound cues, and a gym bag that doesn’t even reveal its contents until the very end of the play, Dan creates an entire world.
His final speech ties all the disparate threads together and includes a sly nod to the process of making, and watching,
theater, as well as just finding a way to get through your life. It’s a sleek piece of work that hums by before you know it, time very much well spent.
Very highly recommended.
