John Anthony Loffredo’s Frou-Frou: A Menagerie of Sorts, which just had its world premiere at Boston Court Pasadena, is an extraordinary piece of theatre unlike any other where not only does it take the storyline of Tennessee Williams‘ The Glass Menagerie and completely riff off from it in wildly provocative ways, but makes a very compelling case that if a theatre company must depend on putting up classic works over and over again, why not present a thoroughly refreshing and updated take on it?
Dare I say, even enhancing and bringing out topical matters the original author wanted to say but couldn’t quite so overtly do because of the times? This is what Frou-Frou accomplishes in an astonishing manner, thanks to the visionary directing guidance of Zi Alikhan.
L is a stoner with social anxiety, Harold is an aspiring ballerina, and their mother is a woman from another time. Driven by archaic dreams for her children, all Mamma wants is for a man to marry L to rescue the family from financial ruin. So when a big, burly traveler turns up at their doorstep, she thinks her prayers have been answered. But it is Harold, her tutu-wearing son, who seems most attracted to this strange man, while L, her chronically online “daughter,” doesn’t seem to want him – but wants to become him. By turns raucous, poetic, touching, and dangerous, Frou-Frou: A Menagerie of Sorts riffs on Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie in this story of two queer siblings yearning to be understood.
Photo by Brian Hashimoto
Despite the storyline basis taken from The Glass Menagerie which is a introspective and dramatic memory play, make no mistake that Frou-Frou is an outrageous comedy of high caliber that has a ginormous heart & emotional core that makes us care for every single character, no matter how absurd their moments may be. With a masterful ensemble cast of four, Simone Brazzini, Patrick Reilly, Reiko Aylesworth, and Ryan Imhoff are utterly compelling in all their different ways.
From Brazzini’s incredible journey of finding their true identity outside of just being a woman, Reilly’s hilarious yet simultaneously beautiful ownership of him being a gay man, Aylesworth’s difficult acceptance (and utter denial) of her children’s journeys in how they express their gender and sexuality while dealing with her own crushing loneliness, and Imhoff’s striking and disgusting example of toxic masculinity while still holding genuine moments of tenderness in his ridiculous manliness, these four actors took me on a journey that never felt safe or predictable. This is definitely the case with one of the characters who is just downright comfortable in their full-on frontal nudity and completely lives in their nakedness for all to see.
Photo by Brian Hashimoto
Like Williams’ play, Frou-Frou is a memory play through and through and director Alikhan makes full usage of that storytelling device by being able to tell so much with so little. With the exception of the long beautiful curtains, there is only a long dining table with a few chairs yet within that minimal set design and with tremendous help from lighting designer Josh Epstein, sound designer Erin Bednarz, properties designer Thomas Bigley, and projection designer Nicholas Hussong, there is a vast imaginative world created and one must remember this to be the case when the story takes the audience in very strange directions, particularly in the end where it almost pivots to a straight up horror movie that is best interpreted in a symbolic manner than that in the literal sense.
Photo by Brian Hashimoto
But the core of this memory play rests on the main character of L and that is where the genius lies as playwright Loffredo takes the fragile sister character of Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie (who I’ve always seen as an unfortunate character with no agency), makes her the main character, and subverts it in such a way that it reminds me of how David Henry Hwang subverted the orientalist Asian character in Madame Butterfly with his M. Butterfly in who tells the story. There is also a wonderful sibling relationship that is formed between L and Harold (Patrick Reilly) in how they begin to truly see each other as they embrace their queer identities.
This play is in itself an act of resistance during our current U.S. administration times in their complete embrace of becoming a trans individual and that the image of a big, burly testosterone-ridden man does not necessarily mean that love is restricted to only one gender for such an individual. This culminates into a gorgeous dance between Harold and Man (with a huge shoutout to intimacy coordinator Carly DW Bones and choreographer Paul McGill) that simply took my breath away in the comfortability the actors found with each other. It’s so gorgeous that it leads to my ONLY issue with the play as Imhoff’s Man has a jolting character switch at the end of the play that is used to serve the storyline but doesn’t necessarily track in terms of character development.
Photo by Brian Hashimoto
I absolutely love that a queer, first-generation South Asian-American, culturally Muslim artist is the director who gets to direct a piece like this. I love that the actors who play the family are all different ethnicities with the main role of L played a non-binary Latinx actor, the mother played by a Japanese hapa actress and the son played by a white Irish actor. All of this is made much possible by casting director Victor Vazquez for finding such exceptional and different talent. I can see future productions of this play having an open field with truly all ethnicities and I highly, highly encourage any theatre company that takes this play on (as they should) to seek out various LGBTQIA+ communities of global majority as this is a most rewarding acting journey for any actor willing to be bold, provocative, and daring. Because theatre like this are in short supply and it is just such a relief to see works that take a huge risk but doesn’t forget to have a heart and make the audience give a damn. And also make them laugh like no other.
Frou-Frou: A Menagerie of Sorts opened on Saturday, March 1 at 7:30 p.m., with performances thereafter on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 30. Tickets range from $32 to $72, including fees and can be bought here.