Quick Review: Perhaps every sub-culture has its own expression of raunchy humor. This play does it well for the semi-highbrow world of modern drama.

Presumably, some folks at the [Bloomington Playwrights Project](http://www.newplays.org) thought that they could draw people out to their new location (on 9th between College and Walnut) by promoting a show with an obscene title. Well, apparently, it worked. I spoke with the stage manager briefly after the show, and he said that this very long run for a BPP play was playing to consistently packed houses, and this new theater seems to seat more people than the old one did. So, another tribute to mixing sex and humor.

I mean, the Greeks did it (and IU’s Production of Lysistrata *really* did it). Shakespeare did it all the time. They did it in Vaudeville shows, right? There’s the whole Burlesque thing. There’s Mel Brooks and his ilk. And of course, there’s all sorts of other movies and venues that are even less generally accepted than these. I think it’s pretty darn clear: a huge number of people have a hankering for sexual humor.

So, we get *Chicks with Dicks*. It tells the story of a good girl turned sort of bad and joining a sort of bad gang of biker chicks known as Satan’s Cherries. They fight with the arguably (but not obviously) worse rival gang. I guess it’s a spoof on a bunch of things I’m really not very familiar with: biker movies, kung-fu movies, B-movies in general. I don’t know. But, whatever was being spoofed, the result actually *was* funny. phew.

The production was really good, too. The odd space that is the new theater was used quite well, I thought. The go-go dancers definitely created an appropriate atmosphere. The signs identifying the settings were funny and functional. The costumes were very impressive, especially since I’m sure their budget was whatever each individual actor could afford.

And, the acting was good, too. The main characters were definitely engaging, and overacted their parts just as much as the script demanded. But the supporting roles were really what made it for me. There was actually a good deal of competition for the uncoveted “I kept forgetting I was watching an actor” award. Alex Young was certainly amazing as Cindi, the overly-innocent girl from Bedford, IN. Alexander Gulck deserves great credit for his performances as different random men (one of only two males in the cast). While he was always recognizable, he did a great job having different character for each character. But, the “I kept forgetting I was watching an actor” award has to go to Joanne Dubach. Special notice needs to be made of the fact that the winner of this award for this play was given to someone who was playing a character named “Kitten”, whose costume was a purple cat suit, and succeeded at being believable both while meowing and while simultaneously dancing and delivering a post-modernistic critique of the action of the play. This was either amazing acting or the casting director just happened to find someone who was really like that. I suspect the former. Very nice work.

But, as I indicated up front, the real schtick here is bawdy humor. I definitely felt at ease laughing at (and with) the cast of this farce as they showed a lot of skin and delivered a lot of double entendre. I can enjoy sex humor as much as the next bloke, as long as it doesn’t seem offensive or exploitative. This was neither, and really ends up being pretty clean fun, if you ask me, even with the excessive fighting. Whatever the reasons, I liked it, and so did just about everyone else there.