With the Pope taking care Easter Sunday to marginalize women and contraception during his $137 million papal junket to Mexico, the Catholic Church continues to flex its muscle on today’s social-political landscape.
On a more intimate level, two roommates in a Catholic boarding school run their own gauntlet of hate politics amid being young and unsure of your place in the world in Bare: A Pop Opera.
“We felt the political climate was good for the show,” says director Jennifer Marshall, who’s premiering the show in Tampa April 19 at the Straz Center for M.A.D. Theatre.
That climate includes continued advances in marriage equality and greater and more positive media exposure but also push backs from the religious right and their political machines.
Mix in exuberant musical numbers and heart-wrenching performances, and you have Bare, which originally premiered at L.A.’s Hudson Theater in Oct. 2000.
“This show is such a rarity in that it hasn’t been overexposed,” Marshall says.
But that hasn’t stopped critics from heaping praise on the music, the book and its chops as a piece of musical theater.
The story’s core centers on school golden boy, Jason, and his secret lover altar boy Peter.
“This is a situation a lot of males and females are going through,” said Omar Montes, who plays Jason.
“You have to keep this secret and its better not to be yourself so society accepts you,” said Montes, who said he came out under similar circumstances in his own life.
Raised in a fervently conservative Pentecostal church, Montes was 14 and dating a girl he said he loved emotionally but not physically.
“It was unfair to her,” he says.
Unfair is writ all over Bare as the story winds its way to its all-too-real ending.
Peter wants to go public with their relationship, but when Matt and Ivy make it four, things start to spin wildly out of control.
“I wanted to show these people as people,” says Marshall. “Not as objects for political candidates.”
Bullyingâ┚¬â€Âthrough outright threats or violence or the power of religionâ┚¬â€Âaffects gay youth disproportionately. Unfortunately, Montes sees new badlands in social media.
“I don’t see it going away any time soon as now there’s more ways than ever to do it,” he says. “I don’t know how we are going to exorcise hate from this planet.”
Playing Peter is Natale Pirrotta, who arrived at his audition for Bare after a nonstop road trip from New York City.
“I was fried,” Pirrotta recalls. “But I’d like to be the glimmer of hope here and say that our generation can shape and mold future generations and none of this will be as prevalent as in today’s society. It’s already not as prevalent as in generations past.”
Marshall is from conservative Polk County, though.
“It’s still difficult to scream it out from the mountaintops,â┚¬Â Marshall adds. â┚¬Å”But we are talking to people and we are changing people. Social media is a way to do that as well.”
Bare: A Pop Opera opens Thursday, April 19 and runs through April 29 at the Simberg Playhouse, housed within the Straz Center complex. For tickets, visit StrazCenter.org.
