It's the relationship we all wish had worked out.
That's how Matt Pennington, the writer behind "The Love Bunny," describes the subject matter of his anti-musical.
"It's about the semester I spent drinking with my guitarist," he said. "I'm not taking the heat for this one by myself."
Pennington's three-act, hour-long show will go up this weekend as part of UNM's Words Afire play festival, which this year is including late-night showings for pieces that are not exactly family fare.
"The Love Bunny" is one such work. Pennington said he was inspired by albums that use narrative, such as Seven More Minutes by The Rentals. But he said, he really hates musical theater.
"People don't seem like they would break out into song suddenly, and if they did, it probably wouldn't be a happy song," he said.
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Pennington's band Pike St. will be playing along at certain points in the show. Though one character will break into song every once in awhile, he said it won't be for the reasons people usually do in musicals.
The play grew out of exercises in a dramatic writing class.
"There was an overwhelming urge to get these emotional threads out of my system so I could say, "OK, I've written this," and I could start writing new things," he said. "A lot of the inspiration was almost like word vomit. It just came out."
Reiko Yazzie said she chose to direct Sean Gardner's works because of their satirical quality and their outrageous characters. "Life is wonderful in the suburbs," and "You say dysfunctional like it's a bad thing: Episode 2" are being billed as Burb Outbreaks and will be part of the after-hours fare at the Tricklock Performance Space.
The first short asks the question "How do you raise a child to become a god-fearing heterosexual?" Yazzie said.
The parents use S&M tactics to teach their son how to relate to women, she said. Eventually, the play points out, if parents are too strict, they can wind up pushing their child to the very behaviors they railed against.
