IF MEN COULD TALK, THE STORIES THEY COULD TELL
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Elovich plays all the characters in his one-man play. Danny Glick is a cartoon artist battling AIDS, which has already begun to impair his vision. He draws in an attempt to avoid his fears, which constantly threaten to overwhelm him–as he repeatedly states, “Nothing works faster than fear.” Elovich makes these fears highly idiosyncratic, which prevents Danny from becoming simply a stereotype or a statistic. Danny explains, for example, that he becomes very afraid when he saw an ad for a low-priced record set on television and couldn’t find a pencil to write down the phone number. but he also says he actively works to overcome his fears. He does this too in his own strange way; after the ad disappeared from the television he frantically masturbated into the sink.
Danny’s lover is Joseph Waxman, a high school microbiology teacher and AIDS clinic volunteer who waves his arms and snaps his fingers in a way that would make most queens look positively butch. Joseph’s “nervous condition” requires him to take medication to check his mannerisms, but he clearly understands why society placed that “‘requirement” on him. So during the week had takes his pills, but on the weekends he stops and seriously flames. Joseph volunteers at Dr. Seuss’s clinic, where Danny goes for treatment for his retinitis. Seuss, a survivor of Auschwitz, tells Danny long stories about the calculated yet irrational human extermination during the Holocaust.
Most impressive is that Elovich is wholly genuine onstage. His work is certainly familiar in style and content, but it seems quite personal. He is hardly “putting on a show” and never resorts to theatrical effects to make his piece look like a “regular play.” Rather, in a gentle and measured tone, he candidly speaks the words of his text, suggesting rather thankfully embodying Joseph’s flamboyance or Danny’s depression. Elovich remains in perfect control of his material–never once misspeaking or even tripping over a word–and he always graciously includes his audience. We know that we are in good hands, and we trust him to lead us through the darkest of stories.
