My boyfriend and I broke up after a two-year relationship. Shortly after (sure, the day he moved out), I went online and started hooking up. Little did I know what was in store. He’d retrieved my passwords, created a fake identity, and began stalking me to undermine my new-found frolicking. Eventually, I caught onto his scheme, everyone went into therapy, and we moved on. The truth always comes out. Or does it?
Robert O’Hara’s new play Shit. Meet. Fan. asks this question — over and over and over again — as a group of friends and spouses gather for a dinner party on the eve of a lunar eclipse. Free-flowing cocktails and Whole Foods charcuterie give way to a tense game where the attendees agree to share their incoming messages throughout the evening.
Adapted from Paolo Genovese’s 2016 film Perfect Strangers, O’Hara adds layers of toxic masculinity and white privilege to the mix, noting in the play’s forward, “Do not try to tame this. Go for the throat.”
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Unfortunately, ambition exceeds form despite a starry cast that leans into familiar tropes, including Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Krakowski, Constance Wu, and Debra Messing. Three couples, a friend who arrives dateless (Tramell Tillman), and a whiny teenage daughter (Genevieve Hannelius) who bookends the piece, make for a lot of interwoven narratives in addition to those unseen characters who DM into the action.
What we’re left with is a lot of screaming, bitching, f-bombs (of the “f*g” variety), and an 11th-hour theatrical convention that, while twisty and thought-provoking, fails to deliver the payoff of the previous strained hour and 45 minutes.
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Clint Ramos’s stunning Dumbo, Brooklyn loft set sprawls across MCC Theater’s wide proscenium, oozing f*ck-you money but also creating marathon traffic patterns for the cast, forced to awkwardly mime conversations while the action is happening 20 feet away, or worse yet, sit with feigned interested while conversations bop around them.
O’Hara’s early exposition dump introduces the guest list, anchored by four former fraternity brothers and spouses. Infidelity is a given in this game, but where O’Hara hits his stride as a playwright (he also directs) is unpacking the systemic racism and bro culture embedded into our zeitgeist.
The dateless Logan (Tillman) is the only one the doorman buzzes to confirm entry to the luxury loft. His intersectional struggle, which becomes one of the evening’s pivotal reveals, demands we take a hard look at identity politics. When his cohort suggests he pursue legal action after revealing his job loss, Logan asks, “You nonchalantly tell me that I should sue them for discrimination. Well what in the entire f*ck should I sue all of you for?”
O’Hara, who helmed Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play and is set to direct the feature film adaption of his own play Barbecue starring Colman Domingo, understands the historic racial, sexual, and gender disparities that fuel our culture and isn’t afraid to hold a magnifying glass to catch them on fire.
While Shit. Meet. Fan. doesn’t always spark; it’s the kind of theater we want to see more of. Let the truth come out.
Shit. Meet. Fan. plays Off-Broadway at MCC Theater through December 15. Click here for tickets.
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