Fuckplays

When sex is the central theme, often there are two interesting performances going on simultaneously: actions onstage, and reactions in the audience. The eight short comedies that make up Fuckplays are relatively enjoyable and clever. A couple of them feel like theatrical food poisoning, but they’re worth enduring to reach the dreadfully entertaining gems that close both acts.

In the evening’s best two works, the theme of mutual erotic satisfaction is a surprisingly biting commonality. Justin Cooper’s Wood focuses on a ventriloquist’s dummy with a dildo who satisfies Simone (Amy Lynn Stewart) more than any man. But where does this unnatural affair leave puppeteer Geoff (Steven Strobel)? A smiling, clueless couple in Eric Sanders’s 1.1–1.7 explore the dirtier sides of sex with partners who use (and perhaps abuse) them.

The program could do without the failed lampoon of the LES bar scene Candy Room or the martyr/virgin nightmare Arms and the Octopus (in which a character’s limbs sprout female genitalia). Still, these duds are excellent opportunities to turn your attention to that other show going on around you: How’s your neighbor responding to those labia-covered arms? — Amanda Cooper