THEATRE Review: “The Poets” – a play about gay bullying & suicide

Marc Bush and Caleb White are “The Poets” (Photo/ND McCray)

We meet Santiago, a suicidal teenage poet, who recently moved to a new neighborhood with his newly single mom, Anita, at a difficult period in his life. “Santi” meets “Tommy”, a kid with a snarky sense of humor and powers to bring much-needed conversations to the fore. Thing is: Tommy’s not human. And Santi is being bullied in school for being a sensitive, caring and kind young man. They soon become friends.

Eleazar “Ricky” Catter’s The Poets: A Play in Two Acts centers on gay bullying and suicide. Now playing at Frenetic Theater –it follows the two teenage boys as they navigate topics that not only affect the kid being bullied but the family dynamic as well.

Santiago (Mark Bush) and Tommy (Caleb White) bring compelling, honest and engaging sensitivity to a story that’s making headlines around the world. With viral videos like the It Gets Better campaign (created to show kids things do get better after graduation), “The Poets” casts a wonderfully poetic light on the awkwardness on high school, first crushes and parental dysfunction.

Santi is dealing with not only being called gay, for which he is not, by school jock Darryl (Alex Rubit)–but he has a new girlfriend in fellow poet Audrey (Ashlie Elyse Sustaita), lives under the roof of his now-strong mother (Catlin Uhlig), who just left her abusive husband Juan (Al Bauman) aka Santi’s father.

Bringing humor into a storyline filled with intensity and at times heart-wrenching moments, director Stephanie Morris chose to give Tommy greater emotional depth as a gay ghost (with his own dark secrets) sent back to Earth to help Santiago get through this time in his life. Letting him know through poetry that it does get better. Bush manages to bring the teenage angst and know-it-all attitude to Santiago that’s often annoying but profoundly understandable in adulthood. White’s spot-on snark and honesty-to-a-fault persona shows the necessary realness to Tommy. While Rubit brings poignant reminders of Dave Korofsky machismo on Fox’s Glee, Uhlig and Bauman’s dynamic as the estranged couple signifies the dysfunction of abusive relationships in a way that makes one wince at the audacity and sadness in it all.

The sadness of bullying and the audacity that many schools still fail to protect gay kids is a true-to-life fact, but hopefully “The Poets” sheds light and starts much-needed dialogue with those who are severely affected –parents and teens alike.

The Poets: A Play in Two Acts runs through July 8. 8pm, Fridays and Saturdays; 3:30pm, Sundays. Frenetic Theater, 5102 Navigation. $20

A portion of ticket sales go to The Trevor Project, an organization dedicated to preventing suicides among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered or questioning teens.

http://www.freneticore.net/theaterevents.html