by John Bear
Daily Lobo
The play "Take Me Out" follows the trials and tribulations that befall a professional baseball team after its star player publicly announces he is gay.
The play was penned by Richard Greenberg, and it won a Tony for best new play and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. This is its first production in Albuquerque.
Director Brandon Scott Jensen said the story is a drama but has plenty of comedic moments.
"I kind of tend to let the actors go free and really explore their character," he said. "For a lot of actors that tends to mean making it funny."
UNM student Justin Young, who plays Shane Mungit, the antagonist, said Darren Lemming's live-television coming out is the straw that broke the camel's back.
Jensen said the story lacks a clear-cut moral message.
Jessie Siebach, who plays Darren, the "quasi-protagonist," as he put it, said the script attempts to arouse sympathy for Shane. Shane spends much of the play hurling racist and homophobic epithets at Darren, who is half African-American.
"He does not have grace or tact in any way at all," he said.
Lack of social niceties notwithstanding, Shane is portrayed as not being aware of the destructive consequences of his actions, Young said.
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Jensen said the play contains nudity in addition to profanity and violence, so it is intended for adults.
Young said most of the nudity takes place in the locker room, revealing the tension that suddenly mounts once the team knows there is a gay man in their midst.
Andrew Corbell, who plays Kippie, the narrator, said the nudity is not gratuitous.
"It's odd with the nude scenes in it, but at the same time they're needed to make the play what it is," he said. "If they weren't there, certain points in the play would be lost."
Corbell had second thoughts about doing the nude scenes, but later changed his mind when he saw they were vital to the play.
"It's empowering," he said. "You get up there and you just feel like you have this sense of power over the audience, because you're just free as a bird up there."
Jensen said the play is more of a character study than anything else, so one need not have any interest in baseball or gay issues.
"There's a lot of commentary in there about how we, some parts of the culture, approach sexuality," Young said.
Corbell added the play reveals serious problems with tolerance in American culture.
"The way the play was written, with the points that come in the nudity, just goes to prove our society is one dicked-up society," he said.
