Friendliest
Fargo, North Dakota, “the friendliest city in North America,” so long as you fit narrow definitions of who is on who is welcome at the ball game and who sits beyond the margins, Drew growing up in a community where Pastor Paul shapes the youth to be “racist hockey players and fascist Barbie dolls,” all made in his understanding of God’s perfect image, while Drew himself colours outside the lines.
Having grown up immersed in comic books and pop culture, he has dreamed of creating a hero who will stand up for queer youth, all his LGTBQIA+ allies, now hungover and in a pitch meeting with a publisher turned confessional where he presents the child he has nurtured and wishes to present to the hostile world, the provocatively named FagMan, a difficult proposition to market.
A one-man show written and performed by Drew Lausch, Friendliest is personal, painful and hilarious, directed by Jenny Leon and with a jangly guitar soundtrack which channels Kevin Smith’s early films of the romantic misadventures of comic book obsessed disaffected youth, on the outer rim of society and spinning out of control, reaching out but being slapped down, denial and concealment a survival skill.
Drew the crystallisation of harnessed twink energy, best friend Kayla a kleptomaniac Catholic with perfect eyebrows and his hot kind of boyfriend Morgan tearing down the boozy highway to a prison term, all have grown up to accept abuse as a condition of love, hiding behind masks to keep themselves safe, even the original gay hero Northman using attitude to keep people at a distance, needing to learn to accept that being different is a superpower.
Friendliest continues at the Nook at Gilded Balloon at Teviot until Monday 31st August
