Nomenil’s debut production seven years ago, Pushin’ Up Roses, made it pretty clear that they did not want to be taken as “theater artists.” With this campy, lowbrow queer coming-of-age melodrama, cockily defiant and vulgarly silly, Nomenil seemed to indicate they hated theater altogether and hoped their show might finish it off for good.
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But Nomenil’s second show–Eat Your Art Out, produced later that year–was unapologetically outrageous, trashy, vicious, fey, and ridiculous from start to finish, banishing all vestiges of middle-class propriety. Stories and characters weren’t developed neatly or even comprehensibly; they spun out of control and exploded. And the company has maintained this demanding standard ever since, despite a general lack of attention from critics and audiences. Even when a Nomenil show was weak, it never compromised.
Faggot Bunny Daddy gives its performers no surreal fantasy world in which to hide; in fact, the men rarely even disappear into characters. Instead they stand before us, exposed physically and emotionally. But since this is a Nomenil show, it’s not just personal confession. The guys camp it up in self-consciously awful production numbers; getting the ball rolling is a Catholicized, Busby Berkeley-esque “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” in Speedos. Jesus and Satan pair up in a series of tempestuous and seductive dances, a man in a bunny suit strips naked while a hunter points a rifle at his head, a hulking leather daddy sings the Lord’s Prayer while his boy is put into restraints, and an uberswish named Francis minces onstage periodically to remind us that all gay men are child molesters, husband stealers, and communists.
In the show’s most startling moment, a defiant young man insists that “Jesus had a pretty nice cock…I wouldn’t doubt it if Jesus sucked a dick himself, or at least had one of those friggin’ disciples suck on his for a while.” Getting no response from the audience, he screams, “You faggots out there are fucking homophobes!” A moment like this forces audience members to grapple with difficult emotions and beliefs, to think in new and perhaps uncomfortable ways. It’s the kind of cultural work that Nomenil usually does, and does well.
