It would be hard enough to waste your adolescence in “The Salad Bowl of America” Salinas California, but add the onus of being a 1980s gay Asian and the burden could become oppressive. Impressionist Kenny Yun finds humor and optimism in his recollections of personal experiences in just that situation. His solo performance Lettucetown Lies, now at The Marsh, presents a number of recognizable but surprising characters in rapid-fire succession. His 76-minute show has clever pacing and distinct inhabitation of a wide variety of characters.
Yun’s autobiographical piece is enacted on a bare stage with a straight-back wooden chair and a few simple hand props. With well-defined character shifts, he portrays his high school life and his acquaintances in the redneck agricultural town. His impressions of them are very distinct. His ability to depict his best friend, the squeaky-voiced Michelle at her pinball machine is uncanny. His problem is, they both want the same jock idol. At a strip poker game, he has to watch as the jock’s “Kool-Aid man” (creamy purple and pink) disappears into her mouth.
In a bit of deft writing, Yun mentions his paper tracings of the body outlines of models he admired, then moves on to other recollections. Later, when describing a sexual encounter between Michelle and the jock he loves, he describes a scene where her hands traced the man’s body contours like his pencil traced the outlines. In other enactments he weaves threads together in a seamless tapestry. In a confessional mode he reveals that he loved to look at pictures of ancient Greek statuary with nude men, like one of Perseus holding the head he had severed from the snake goddess Medusa. His pose emulates the picture’s form. Later he uses that same pose to demonstrate personal interactions with his schoolmates. In the meantime, he becomes an Asian operatic queen playing a diva of Greek myth.
The diversity of Yun’s characterizations is impressive. He gives the background to the audience in narrative interpolations with a slyly syncopated delivery, incorporating unexpected reversals, then abruptly switches to a character or a scene, then seamlessly becomes the narrator again. These shifts among the characters and the narrator keep the pace lively and make the story line more compelling. Throwaway vignettes include his riding on a skateboard in Salinas while listening to Donna Summer, his encounter with “dyslexic racism” and his buying coke in a high school bathroom. Some of his incidental observations, such as “Shakespeare was a butt pirate,” give unexpected insight to a vaguely unfamiliar culture. Other incidental details flesh out the Salinas experience. His friends always want to bum his menthol cigarettes. He steals wine from his friends’ parents when they are away and runs up huge long-distance phone bills. Overall, Yun’s physical energy on stage and his obvious love for the personal experiences he relates keep the show tight and involving. He uses the width of the shallow stage in a naturally motivated way. In the intimate space, Yun makes an effort to establish contact with each audience member. He has good motility of facial expression and a good sense of timing; he notices audience reactions and compensates. The play is sometimes repetitious, covering the same ground more than once with minimal variation, but Yun is a pleasure to watch and it’s sometimes astounding to see where he will go next.
Lettucetown Lies continues through June 27 at The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($15 to $50) are available by phone at (800) 838-3006 or on line at www.themarsh.org.
