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"Nice" capades
"Shyness Is Nice" is a light screwball comedy packed with sex, gore, drugs and rock and roll — oh, and big-time laughs.
By JOSHUA TANZER
Offoffoff.com
Rodney and Stew are virgins.
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| | | SHYNESS IS NICE | Written by: Marc Spitz.
Directed by: Jonathan Lisecki.
Cast: Zeke Farrow, Andersen Gabrych, Jonathan Lisecki, Camille Shandor, Sibyl Kempson.
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Wait, no they're not. Wait, yes they are. Wait, they can't remember. These twentysomething best buddies are like carbon copies of the geeky Todd Louiso character from "High Fidelity," who obviously feel safer in their apartment listening to the latest remixes of '80s new wave records than going out and getting a life. As the play opens, Stew (Zeke Farrow) is wearing a Smiths T-shirt and reading "The Aesthetics of Rock."
So it's a big step for them when their worldlier so-called friend Fitzgerald (Jonathan Lisecki) sends them a present — a tall, leggy prostitute to show them what they've been missing. Not that they aren't grateful and everything, but they've heard that prostitutes cost money.
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"Who's paying for this?" Rodney (Andersen Gabrych) asks nervously. "Because it costs money, right? Because I just bought the new Joy Division box set!"
"Fucking is better than the new Joy Division box set," Fitzgerald assures him coolly. "Trust me, fucking is better."
Well, it is and it isn't, as the play's five characters will quickly discover when hooker Kylie (Kylie) and pimp Blixa (Blixa), a couple of tough Australian women, don't get their $300. What follows is a truly hilarious orgy of sex, drugs, violence and rock and roll — everything that's bad for you. Marc Spitz — previously the creator of such unwholesome frolics as "Retail Sluts" — has created a comedy that puts the "screw" in screwball. (The "ball" too, come to think of it.) In fact, word is that the play is being turned into a porn film called "Platypussy," which will make it undoubtedly the first intentionally funny porn film in history.
But "Shyness Is Nice" wasn't porn yesterday — it's simply a fast-paced and laugh-packed comedy that spins outrageously out of control in the last act before ending surprisingly nicely. It's a breezy night's entertainment but one carried off so smartly that you'll leave the theater giddily happy.
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JUNE 20, 2001
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
Reader comments on Shyness is nice:
Camille from Sam Dushkin, Oct 31, 2001
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