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Moving picture
John Leguizamo energizes Sexaholix
BY CAROLYN CLAY

Sexaholix . . . A Love Story
Written and performed by John Leguizamo. Directed by Peter Askin. Lighting by Kevin Adams. Sound by T. Richard Fitzgerald. At the Colonial Theatre through June 9.


Given the adage that opposites attract, it’s pretty funny that John Leguizamo’s girlfriend is named Teeny, because this guy is larger than life — and faster than a speed-ingesting bullet. He practically hurls himself onto the Colonial stage, backwards, dancing, before a curtain of strung-up lightbulbs that are pulsing only slightly less than he is. Before momentarily slowing to a fast idle to elicit the adulation of the audience, he demonstrates various styles of boogying, from " old school " to " high school " to " white school " to various Latin schools; they culminate in Dominican, in which the butt jerks as if it were watching a tennis match. Moreover, the man has a tale to tell, of his transformation from loud, lithe, " damaged " goods, growing up poor in Queens, to unwedded bliss and parenthood. And he tells it in three languages: English, Spanish, and, his native tongue, Body.

For the information of you gringos over 40 who tune in to HBO only for The Sopranos, the part-Colombian, part-Puerto-Rican Leguizamo burst on the theater scene in 1991 with his first one-man show, the Obie-winning Off Broadway Mambo Mouth. He has been wielding that orifice, among equally lively body parts, ever since. Along with film work that runs from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet to that director’s Oscar-nominated Moulin Rouge, Leguizamo has written and performed the Off Broadway Spic-O-Rama, as well as the savagely autobiographical Freak, which was nominated for two Tonys, and the slightly fuzzier Sexaholix, which opened on Broadway last year. Just last week, it took the legendary Elaine Stritch to rob the perpetual-motion mouth and machine of the 2002 Tony for Special Theatrical Event.

All of Leguizamo’s shows have aired on HBO, which may explain the number of less-old, less-white folks who turned out Tuesday night for Sexaholix’s Boston opening. You usually see more blue hair in the audience than you hear " blue balls " in the dialogue at the downtown theaters. And there’s pretty much nothing Leguizamo won’t say; possibly, continual gyration loosens lips, at least of the mambo mouth. It’s not just the mouth: there’s naught on stage but the energetic performer and a stool, yet given their relationship, you might expect, in about nine months, the birth of a stool wearing a tight T-shirt. And given what the performer tells us about his pre-Teeny relationships, the stool is giving a little less back. " Oh, come on, baby, you’ve got to move a little, " you half expect him to implore it.

Like Freak, Sexaholix is brazenly autobiographical; it’s even chronological. The gyrating boy survives such entertainingly recounted if painful experiences as Latin Dad, a threatening, macho presence who regards his sons as midgets who don’t pay rent, and a two-week stay, courtesy of the Fresh Air Fund, with upscale drunks in Vermont. (They at least taught him that " white people were fucked up too " — no kidding.) The leader of the wittily caricatured homeboy frat of the play’s title, Leguizamo lusts for a cloistered cop’s daughter dubbed " Rapunzel " Garcia, survives college partying, shacks up with an older woman, inadvisably marries a Latina actress with a Rosie Perez whine, and finally meets Teeny, learning the meaning of love. This does not prevent him from responding to the more level-headed Teeny’s revelation of reproductive urges with, " We don’t need kids; we got me. "

Along the way, Leguizamo lives with, and later cares for, his grandparents. The episodes sprung from this best express, for all the show’s abandon, Sexaholix’s skilled — and uncommonly frank — mix of comedy and pathos. Some of the material, regardless of the ethnic particularity of the piston-like performer, is arguably trite and self-indulgent. But Leguizamo, doubtless abetted by director Peter Askin, delivers it with such verve and sensitivity that it plays. Case in point: granddad’s funeral. Before attending the much-loved (and explicitly attended to) progenitor’s funeral, the performer gets unadvisedly high and develops " pot mouth, " which makes him appear to be smiling, and panicking about it, at the solemn occasion.

In addition to being a precisely rhythmic whirling dervish, Leguizamo is an excellent mimic. He provides viable and differentiated personae for characters ranging from his swaggering dad to his Jewish girlfriend. Throw in, among others, a breakdancing mom wielding a belt and a stuttering lesbian aunt and it’s no wonder the Leguizamo family are less than thrilled with their relation’s cannibalistic chosen profession. The performer is also an ambassador for effusive Latin culture: put him on a split screen with the similarly navel-gazing but more ironic and desk-bound Spalding Gray and you have evidence of every cliché ever applied to Latinos and WASPs. But whatever your ethnicity, if you are a fan of Leguizamo from TV or CD, see him live — because he most emphatically is.

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