Diversionary Theater

User Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Happy Endings Are Extra
by Ashraf Johaardien
Diversionary Theatre
Production Manager: Bret Young
Directed by Rosina Reynolds
Intended audience: for adults, with nudity.

Genre: tragedy.
Plot: the play is based on the story of a bisexual man who, turns out, falls in love with a rent boy.
Main action of the play: the woman finds out the love relationship between her fiancé and a rent boy.
Main conflict: after having an affair with the rent boy, Gabriel finds out the boy's background.

Main characters:
Gabriel: a bisexual man who becomes in love with a rent boy named Chris while he is engaged to Chatelle.

Chantelle: Gabriel’s fiancée who pretends to be unconcerned by his sexual interests.

Chris: working like a rent boy, he seduces Gabriel as part of his work and tries to forget what Gabriel has done to him.

In this play, everything is well designed, from chairs, bed, and curtain to lights, music, and costume. The stage looks wider and gives a three dimensional feeling to audience members when appearing in the curtain on the background are hundreds of moving words, repeating in phrases such as “It does not matter,” “Honest in which way,” and “I like to pay.” ??? Additionally, music is selectively played through out the play, from dance music to opera. In terms of music, Ashraf Johaardien successfully uses a female opera singer, with her dramatic voice raises increasingly according to the play, and it reaches to the highest note during the climax.

Besides, if music plays the most impressive element in this play, kissing scenes between Gabriel and Chris become the most unforgettable moment to many audience members. Playing the character Chris is Michael Purvis, a young actor who has such a passionate for the role. Being totally nude, touched, and kissed in an excited way by an experienced Claudio Raygoza (Gabriel), Michael Purvis offers audience members a remarkable performance at that night. (Yow.) Claudio Raygoza (Gabriel) has been recognized multiple times at the Patte Awards, and beside him is, apparently, Anahid Shahrik (Chantelle), a talented, beautiful, and charming actress.

Although being related to a hot topic today, gay/lesbian community, “Happy endings are extra” is less about sexual orientation than in analyzing human feelings as people involve in taboo sexual relationships. Their arguments are “is it bad when I want to be happy?” or “I like to pay [for your service]” just like the character Gabriel’s words or any cheating men’s. Audience members probably would not find it strange or something new once they recall that in everyday life there are not few prostitutes, both males and females struggled in situations similar to Chris’s.
Everybody wants to be happy, but among many ways of pursuing happiness one might be walking on a dead end road. Similarly, in “Happy endings are extra,” there had been a lot of rent boys Gabriel could have dated, but, badly, unluckily, or even blindly, he met the wrong one.

The play is not something special to audience members but the way the story goes, which is changing smoothly from one scene to another as well as nudity scenes and ending with such a surprise, “Happy endings are extra" becomes exceptionally attractive and emotional. In addition, opera music in this play helps strengthen that emotion, and that makes the play enjoyable during the whole performance.

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