Theatre Review: "Thunder Above, Deeps Below"

[Shana A]

Theatre Review: "Thunder Above, Deeps Below"

by Jonathan Warman

http://gaysocialites.com/2009/09/theatre_review_thunder_above_d.html

Playwright A. Rey Pamatmat's Thunder Above, Deeps Below succeeds where many other adventurous gay plays of the recent past have fallen short. It does this in spite of not featuring a single character that comfortably identifies as gay. The closest is Filipina FTM pre-op transsexual Gil (played with great style and verve by Jon Norman Schneider), who passed through a period where he considered himself gay before he faced the problem of his gender. Gil is the conscience of the play, a major part of its success.

What the play successfully does is get its hands dirty with the hard truths about internalized homophobia, and the traumas a variety of societies and families inflict on anyone who is sexually different. The word "->-bleeped-<-got" gets bandied around a lot, but, you know what, I find its use here a lot less offensive than when it's used as a throwaway. Here, we're getting an intelligent look at the twisted thinking that makes that word a potent tool for abuse and control.