TIPPI: PORTRAIT OF A VIRGIN
Trunk Productions
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Check it out, Kathleen! Tippi isn’t good, wholesome entertainment at all. It’s a put-on! This TV movie for the stage addresses such classic after-school themes as premarital sex, drunk driving, and religious freedom with a script that might have been written by Stephen King and a directorial style inspired equally by old Annette Funicello movies and Pink Flamingos.
Directed by Benjamin Zook, cleverly choreographed by Nancy Giangrasse, and written by the cast through an improvisational process that’s still evident in the loose, slightly risky feel of the performances, Tippi is vulgar, energetic fun. It’s also a ritual of postadolescent acting out in which the cast lays waste such taboos as premarital sex, incest, and homosexuality while determinedly mocking parental, medical, political, and every other kind of authority. Theatrically minimalist–performed on a stage that’s nearly bare except for a few all-purpose blocks and an ever-changing series of cheap pictures on the wall–it’s acted with a roughhouse zestiness that’s reinforced by the party-animal atmosphere in the crowded audience, whose members are given a reprieve from the stuffy old bans on smoking, drinking, and eating enforced by most theaters (one group sat on the floor in front of the stage and ate a carryout pizza the night I was there).
