Brian Dykstra $elling Out: Theater review by Jenna Scherer
It's not quite accurate to call slam poet–cum-comedian Brian Dykstra's latest piece a one-man show. It's more like a one-man rant, rambling and ragey, filled with passionate vitriol for everything that's wrong with America. Which is, as we all know, a lot of stuff. The debt crisis, big banks, climate-change deniers, politicians in lobbyists' pockets, religious fundamentalists? Dykstra is pissed off about all of it.
He spits rage about anything and everything, building tall towers of words, shouting himself hoarse. It must be exhausting to perform; it's certainly exhausting to watch. Dykstra alternates between long lists of facts—many culled from filing cabinets and piles of newspapers onstage—and spoken-word poems about things like bailouts and health-care reform.
There are some sharp lines amid the rubble (he points out that right-wingers who hate on socialism are "like yeast haters without a working definition of toast"), but there are also jokes so musty that you can practically see the dust flying off of them. And in one particularly cringe-inducing moment, the very white Dykstra performs a poem from the perspective of a Somali man—complete with attempted accent.
Dykstra seems to think he's being really subversive in performing $elling Out, but it's neither surprising nor revolutionary to shout down corporate America and neo-cons from atop a soapbox in one of the most liberal cities in the country. We were already on board with most of the views he's sharing; there's no need for Dykstra to yell himself into an ulcer.—Jenna Scherer
Playroom Theater (see Off Broadway). By Brian Dykstra. Directed by Margarett Perry. With Dykstra. Running time: 1hr 20mins. No intermission.