" My heart is still in the street and my mind is still in the gutter, " says Theater Offensive artistic director Abe Rybeck, who’s enthused to the point of mania the week before the start of the tenth annual OUT on the Edge Festival of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Theater. Rybeck’s ambition, like his attitude, hasn’t been altered one iota by the accolades and honors already earned by his queer-to-the-core company, which received a special citation at no less august a venue than the 1999 Elliot Norton Awards.

" It’s gratifying that people recognize the excellence of what we’ve done so far, " he allows. " But we have our eyes on the future. What the hell is going to happen next in queer culture? Pat identity issues aren’t all that interesting anymore. Today, the very concept of queerness isn’t just expanding, it’s exploding. In the future, social change is going to be a much messier matter than it was in the past, because queer culture is a mishmash, shaped by all kinds of daring experiments in humanity. The Theater Offensive is committed to exploring new directions. We want to find whatever is out there now that has the power to blow people’s minds. "

Billed as a " queer punk circus of the apocalypse, " the festival’s opening show promises some mind-blowing moments. At one point in Dr. Frockrocket’s Vivifying (Re-Animatronic) Menagerie and Medicine Show (September 5 through 8), which is written and performed by nine queer women and a drag queen, Bridget Irish (who was born on St. Patrick’s Day) bares her Irish ass, dips it in green paint, and stamps out oversized four-leaf clovers, all to the tune of " When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. " Later, she takes off all her clothes and urges playgoers to join her in a game of nude Twister. " She never speaks, and she’s almost naked, " explains writer/performance artist and group spokesman Nomy Lamm, who describes herself as a " badass, fatass, jew-dyke amputee. " In her own solo turn for Dr. Frockrocket, " a fairy-princess, belly-dance thing, " Lamm keeps her clothes on but sheds her prosthetic leg. Among the show’s other pieces, she says, are a flamenco dance depicting a deadly bullfight and a monologue in which " a woman sits in her bedroom before a date and talks to herself about how scary fucking is. " According to Lamm, the theater piece’s diverse performances are linked by four elements: the " circus-punk feel " of the live music; the theme of transformation; the show’s " earnest " intent; and an umbrella plot about an itinerant medicine man who uses a magic elixir to turn people into mythological creatures that eventually grow beyond his control.

Whereas the first show in the festival may indeed be more earnest than it sounds, the second is said to be less so. " Believe me, " says Rybeck, " Alec Mapa is hysterical " in I Remember Mapa (September 7 through 9), a one-man show about multiple misfortunes. Best known for a Broadway stint as the Chinese-opera diva of M. Butterfly and as TV’s " first out Asian sit-com character " on CBS’s Some of My Best Friends, Mapa concedes that his autobiographical monologue " sounds bleak " in summary. " In one six-month period, " he explains, " my career collapsed, my lover dumped me, and my mother died. Then, I sort of had a nervous breakdown. Actually, I did have one. " Asked to explain how he milks his awful experiences for laughs, he replies that " comedy is tragedy that happens to someone else. "

Committed to individuality as well as to diversity, the Theater Offensive devotes half of the festival’s second weekend to a show by two queer performers of Asian heritage who differ from Mapa and each other in their background and concerns. According to Regie Cabico, he and Aileen Cho conceived Crouching Cabico, Hidden Cho (September 14 through 16) while " drinking beer together and talking about our lives. " Cho, says Cabico, " is a bisexual Korean from LA, and I’m a gay Filipino from New York. When you put us together, you get something really weird. The show’s a mixture of different genres [these include monologues, sketch comedy, and spoken-word duets]. It’s personal and political, and it has pathos as well as humor. " Although Cabico aims to entertain, he also hopes that he and Cho can help to undermine the various stereotypes and simple-minded assumptions they’ve both encountered in books, bars, and bed.

Cultural education of an entirely different sort can be gleaned between the laughs in Shequida’s Opera for Dummies (September 12 through 15), which is performed by " the world’s only Juilliard-trained drag opera diva. " According to Rybeck, Shequida has a five-octave range that’s particularly lovely when she’s singing soprano. " Just for the vocals alone, the show is worth seeing, but it’s also a primer on the history of opera. As told by this very sassy black drag queen, however, that history is hilarious. "

Fun and instruction are also part of the mix in P.S. 69 (September 19 through 22). Inspired by actual events in the life of Susan Jeremy, who wrote the script with Mary Fulham and plays all 24 characters, P.S. 69 centers on a gay substitute teacher who was arrested for stripping. " Anyone who has a kid, is a kid, is a teacher, or works in the schools simply must see this show, " says Rybeck. " I’ve never seen anything funnier or more to the point about what’s going on in school these days. There’s a belly laugh about every 30 seconds. But the show also exposes how screwed up a lot of schools are and suggests some ways we could promote change. "

Originally produced by the Actors’ Gang in Los Angeles, A Fairy Tale (September 21 through 23), by Daniel T. Parker, Chris Wells, and Tracy Young, is a take-off on Hansel and Gretel. " I love this play, " says Rybeck, " but it’s really twisted and dark. Among other things, it shows how gay men can be each other’s worst enemies, exposing how catty and mean we can be. It also shows what we love about each other, but the love part doesn’t come until the very end. Basically, A Fairy Tale is ugly but delicious. "

The sacred and the profane intermingle on the festival’s final weekend, especially in Holy Shit: Stories from Heaven and Hell (September 28 and 29). Written and acted by Janice Perry, who is also known as GAL, the piece explores the relationship between the roles of women and the idea of divinity. " It’s an encapsulated history and also a critique, " explains Rybeck. " In ancient cultures, women were divinities. But today, from Afghanistan to Arlington, religion treats women as objects of scorn. Holy Shit! is very funny from start to end, but it also calls the bluff of the religious right. "

If Marga Gomez is as amusing in performance as she is on the phone, the OUT on the Edge fest will go out with a bang. Admired in queer circles nationwide and compared by the New York Times to a " Molotov cocktail, " Gomez performs two shows, Higher Highs, Lower Lows and CONQUINA! (September 27 through 29). One’s about a Latina Christmas; the other concerns the relationship the performer struck up with a married woman at a Gay Pride march in New Jersey. Dark, wild, and witty, the material is too good to give away. If you want a sneak preview of Gomez’s quirky perspective, check out for Web site at www.margagomez.com. Or just camp out at the Boston Center for the Arts for the next few weekends, and at the end of the Edge she’ll be there — like a pot of comic gold at the end of a queer rainbow.

Issue Date: August 30 - September 6, 2001