Theatre Review: "Thunder Above, Deeps Below"
by Jonathan Warman
http://gaysocialites.com/2009/09/theatre_review_thunder_above_d.htmlPlaywright 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.
