Iron Crow Theatre: Mankind

Iron Crow Theatre in Baltimore is a small company. I consider 1st Stage in Tysons, VA a small company, and Constellation Theatre Company in DC a small company. But when you are a small theatre in Baltimore, you are smaller than in the DMV. Perhaps not by cubic footage, but by audience availability. The only theatre I've been to that is smaller is Metro Stage in Alexandria. And that's saying something. But fear not. I like small theatre troops. They are scrappy. They are innovative. They can even be fearless.

This trip to Iron Crow was over two years in the making.  Iron Crow is a company dedicated to produce queer theatre.  Presently I attend productions at three theatre companies in Baltimore, and going to see a show at Iron Crow was going to increase my exposure they're by 25%.  I had my ticket and I was looking forward to the adventure.  My ticker was for a show to staged in June of 2020... you see what happened.  So I converted the ticket to a gift, and like Constellation and 1st Stage made modest contributions during the down time in the hopes of helping these scrappy, innovative, and fearless theatres to survive.  Of all three, Iron Crow was the last to publish a season.  And I immediately bought a ticket.

A word about the theatre.  It occupies a later half of the nineteenth century building on Preston Street adjacent to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Hall.  The great advantage of this is that across the street is a public parking garage.  Parking in the city be it Baltimore, DC or Bethesda is an issue.  For example, Studio Theatre in DC has no parking and lies over 6 blocks from the nearest metro station requiring me to walk through neighborhoods that I less than comfortable in.  Ergo, I don't go to productions at this top notch, award winning theatre.

Now, a word about the play.  "Mankind" by Robert O'Hara is a futuristic allegory about a wide range of social ills and human foibles set in a time when all the "wo-men" have vanished from the earth.  Now, men have evolved to become pregnant, and abortion is completely illegal.  Enter a pair of "no strings attached" fuck buddies, Jason and Mark, and suddenly unexpectedly, Jason is pregnant.  From here the story takes on a range of complications, some familiar to woman who are now living in states with similiar views about abortion and others completely fantastical.  Seeking an abortion, the boys are convicted of attempted murder and sent to prison, until Jason gives birth to the first "wo-man" in over 100 years.  The child, only referred to as "Cry-Baby" is not long for the word and dies on live television during a Maury Povich sort of shock talk show.  The death of Cry-Baby uncovers and motives a fringe group of men who are secretly praying for a return of wo-men to the world.  Naxt thing you know, a new religion is born from the death of Cry-Baby and Jason and Mark are forced into leading it in order to remain free from prison.  

Okay, catch your breath!  I've only told you a half of it...but let half suffice.  The play unfolds like a crack addict on adderall.  At times frenetic and times semi-lucid.  There is audience participation that included a service at the temple to the feminism and goddess "She" where Cry-Baby takes on the Messiah role.  I was one half a dozen audience member given a copy of the liturgy and asked to sing along with call and response "Ah-wo-men"s.  (Not a play for those easily offended by mock blasphemy or devote conservative Lutherans--since the liturgy was basically lifted from them!)  Suffice it to say, it is a play with a lot of moving parts.

Now how does an actor approach a work like this?  Of the six men in the cast, there seemed to be a dichotomy.  Three seemed to try and hold on to a semblance of recognizable, what?...reality?  While the other half embraced the work with an over the top gusto.  Frankly, it was confusing at first.  But given the subject matter and the generally AD/HD pace of ideas being tossed out, in the end I sided with the over top contingency.  Everyone on stage was new to me.  I'll bet you, though, that at least two of the over-the-toppers are also successful drag performers.

So down to the nitty-gritty.  In the end, I appreciated all of the actors on the stage, and in turns, most of them had moments/character portrayals that annoyed me, too.  Therefore, I am going to highlight moments.  The reoccurring duo of "Bob & Bob" played by Nicholas Miles and Lucius Robinson were easily the over-the-top best performances--Bob & Bob being the talk show hosts.  David Forrer in the role of the Morality Judge Chamberlain also delivered solid, humorous and yet most biting monologues.  

The set was an all in one, curtain-less delight.  Kudos to Chuck Atwell.  For this production, there were no Press photos that I could find.

The building housing the theater.  The entrance is to the left and the theater space inhabits the third floor from the central window to the right.

The left edge is the frame of the window furthest to the right in the above photo.  You can see the proximity to the BSO Performance Hall.