{"id":108598,"date":"2025-02-12T09:22:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T17:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=108598"},"modified":"2025-02-12T09:22:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T17:22:47","slug":"left-edge-theatres-motherf-with-the-hat-is-funny-heartrending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/left-edge-theatres-motherf-with-the-hat-is-funny-heartrending\/","title":{"rendered":"Left Edge Theatre’s ‘Motherf– with the Hat’ is funny, heartrending"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
by Woody Weingarten, Bay City News \u00a0 <\/a><\/span><\/span>February 10, 2025<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n

L-R, Sergio Diaz, Danny Ba\u00f1ales and Isiah Carter are among the excellent cast in Left Edge Theatre\u2019s production of \u201cThe Motherf—- with the Hat\u201d in Santa Rosa through Feb. 22. (Courtesy Dana Hunt\/Left Edge Theatre via Bay City News)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n

Jackie, who dreams of settling down with Veronica, an addict, spies a man\u2019s hat on her nightstand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n

\u201cThat ain\u2019t my hat,\u201d he growls, and gets fired up to do battle\u2014with her, the owner of the headgear and his own inner demons.<\/p>\n

The difference between Romeo and Juliet and the star-crossed Puerto Rican lovers in Stephen Adly Guirgis\u2019 \u201cThe Motherf\u2014- with the Hat,\u201d onstage in a Left Edge Theatre production in Santa Rosa, is that Shakespeare\u2019s tragedy focuses on unadulterated young love, while \u201cMother\u201d is seen through a prism of love desecrated by drugs, alcohol and sexual cheating.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMotherf\u2014-,\u201d which packs a wallop, is devilishly funny in the first act (an early scene has Jackie sniffing their hand-me-down bed to find smells of betrayal). Yet it\u2019s a poignant and heartrending unfunny drama in the second (\u201cWe\u2019re broken,\u201d insists Veronica).<\/p>\n

This tragicomedy can\u2019t help but make you think. Each of the dysfunctional, multidimensional<\/p>\n

characters\u2014all perhaps difficult to relate to for those who didn\u2019t grow up with their kind of people or toyed with their kind of twisted morality\u2014has complex depth, despite the torrent of f-bombs.<\/p>\n

\"\"
L-R, Danny Ba\u00f1ales and Mercedes Murphy appear in Left Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cThe Motherf\u2014- with the Hat\u201d onstage in Santa Rosa through Feb. 22, 2025. (Courtesy Dana Hunt\/Left Edge Theatre via Bay City News)<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They lie while craving honesty. All swear with abandon and relish sex as if it were the only life-force worth considering. All the while, they\u2019re on mostly futile quests for loving relationships.<\/p>\n

The play offers philosophical tidbits while spewing language of the streets. Yet\u00a0there\u2019s still room for a line like, \u201cIt\u2019s funny how a person can be more than one thing, ain\u2019t it?\u201d Or for a woman to describe her man as having \u201ca PhD in self-loathing\u201d or to say about herself, \u201cI\u2019ve got about 10 minutes more of gravity before it all comes crashing down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Directed by Serena Elize Flores, The Left Edge cast is notable.<\/p>\n

Danny Ba\u00f1ales artfully, and with deft slapstick, plays Jackie, a parolee alcoholic who struggles physically and mentally. Mercedes Murphy passionately portrays Veronica as someone who can\u2019t help going past the red lines society has imposed on her. Isiah Carter is robust as Ralph D, the sensitive, 12-step sponsor who\u00a0befriends Jackie. Grace Kent as Victoria, Ralph D\u2019s frustrated wife, is filled with dichotomies. Sergio Diaz is Jackie\u2019s gay, sex-addicted cousin Julio, a guy hell-bent on proving his manhood.<\/p>\n

The 105-minute (plus-intermission) show is a rarity. It features fleeting male nudity and avoids female nudity. But its mainstay is naked emotion. In the final analysis, that\u2019s nothing to laugh at.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Motherf\u2014- with the Hat\u201d continues through Feb. 22 at Left Edge Theatre, 528 Seventh St., Santa Rosa. Tickets are $33 to $44 at leftedgetheatre.com.<\/a> \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

This article was first published on\u00a0<\/span>LocalNewsMatters.org<\/a>, a nonprofit site supported by Bay City News Foundation http:\/\/www.baycitynews.org\/contact\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Sherwood \u201cWoody\u201d Weingarten, a longtime member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, can be contacted by email at\u00a0voodee@sbcglobal.net <\/a>or on his websites, <\/b><\/em>https:\/\/woodyweingarten.com<\/a><\/b><\/em> <\/b>and\u00a0https:\/\/vitalitypress.com<\/a><\/b><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

<\/main><\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Woody Weingarten, Bay City News \u00a0 February 10, 2025 L-R, Sergio Diaz, Danny Ba\u00f1ales and Isiah Carter are among the excellent cast in Left Edge Theatre\u2019s production of \u201cThe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":3.5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-108598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"