Theatre in Review: Can I Be Frank? (Soho Playhouse)Three shows jostle for your attention in Can I Be Frank?, and they often threaten to crowd each other out. Whenever Morgan Bassichis is busy commenting caustically on their life and career, the results are delightful. Skinny, intense, talkative, with a face, they note, like "maybe I walked out of a folktale," they add, "I get compliments on my appearance all the time; someone stopped me in this neighborhood the other day and goes, 'Sandra Bullock!'" Detailing the problems facing gay people of today, among the most pressing issues are, they note, "How do we get through our own nightmares? And how do we make the leap from, like, Soho Playhouse, to a major streaming platform?" A Q&A session, featuring audience members lobbing them scripted questions, has them naming Terry Gross and Jill Stein as their comedic influences. One interlocutor is instructed to tell them, "I'd love to talk to you about that because I work at A24's nonbinary comics division." Well, a comic can dream... Bassichis could probably keep the house in stitches all night long merely by talking about themself. But, as the show's title hints, they are out to resurrect the memory of Frank Maya, a pioneering, out-of-the-closet gay comic, who, on the cusp of mainstream success, died of heart failure related to AIDS in 1995. It's a laudable effort, but Maya is a tricky subject, a multifaceted talent whose essence isn't easy to pin down. Beginning as a musician, he morphed into a performance artist, in one piece using Liberace's AIDS-related death to confront the toxic nature of the closet. (To put it mildly, this wasn't the done thing at the time.) Later, at Carolines Comedy Club and Comedy Central, he wielded a school-of-Joan-Rivers style to spoof his dysfunctional family and celebrities popular with the gay community. (One routine, quoted by Bassichis, about New Yorkers eyeballing Anne Frank's Amsterdam hideout as an attractive real-estate option, remains pure comedy gold). But Bassichis' high-intensity delivery and elaborate body language are the opposite of Maya's classically cool delivery. Also, Maya's material is of its time, aimed at targets who may be unknown to the Gen-Z audience at Soho Playhouse. It's pretty funny when Bassichis describes Liberace as the "Tiger King before Tiger King was Tiger King;" it's startling to realize that, for many in the house, Liberace must be identified. Another bit, featuring letters addressed to Maya from beyond the grave by Lucille Ball and other showbiz luminaries, may be confusing to younger audiences. Bassichis rescues it in part by "discovering" a letter from Maya, naming Cole Escola as the ideal person to portray him onstage. You can imagine how well that idea goes over. Bassichis combines these strands in a climactic passage that expresses their five-alarm warning over an American society racing downhill, especially in its treatment of queer people. It's heartening to hear a roll call of talents ravaged by AIDS, including such downtown legends as Charles Ludlam, Ethyl Eichelberger, Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, and Ron Vawter. (The list includes the artist and scenic designer Huck Snyder, who collaborated so fruitfully with the performance artist John Kelly.) Bassichis also calls up a lost world of clubs and performance venues, including King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, The Pyramid Club, and Dixon Place, most of them grungy, cramped holes where talent flourished. In many ways, Can I Be Frank? is reminiscent of last season's Give Me Carmelita Tropicana! in offering a requiem for a lost downtown theatre scene. The final sequence, driven by righteous rage about, well, everything, is riveting, but when Bassichis switches tones, you can hear the gears stripping. (Also, on the two or three occasions when they dip into song -- an effort far outside their skill set -- they threatens to sacrifice the considerable goodwill they has amassed.) Still, like Maya, Bassichis is going places, and Can I Be Frank? packs plenty of laughs into its ninety-minute running time as well as a powerful argument about the necessity of comedy in terrible times. Director Sam Pinkleton continues his hot streak of putting together tight, fast-moving entertainments geared for a young queer audience but with plenty of appeal for other demographics. Oona Curley's production design features Eli Woods Harrison's recreation of Maya's favored backdrop (a life preserver set against a yellow background); they also work up some amusing disco-style lighting effects from time to time. In bouncing between themself and Maya, Bassichis constructs an argument that any unapologetically queer self-assertion, even the most superficial, constitutes powerful acts of resistance in an oppressive era; one fights back by simply being, visibly so. I'm not entirely convinced of that, but they argue with real conviction, and there's little question that they are a talent to be watched. Who knows? They may be making that longed-for leap to a major streaming platform sooner rather than later. --David Barbour 
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