Puja Tolton and Delaney Bantillo in Found Family Photo by Alandra Hileman
FOUND FAMILY BY LEFT COAST THEATRE COMPANY
It’s crazy to think I first met Neil Higgins 14 years ago. We both frequented the same Café Royale-based theatre collective (later relocated to PianoFight) that attracted many of SF’s up-and-coming indie theatre artists. Knowing Higgins’ work before he was Left Coast Theatre Company’s artistic director, I can say with confidence that “The Interview”—his show-opening contribution to the Found Family short play collection (through December 7 at the Phoenix Theatre, SF)—may be the best thing he’s ever written. It’s a funny, well-acted, too-real satire of both queer dating and attempting adult friendships in an increasingly digital world. What’s more, it’s just the opening piece of LCTC’s best show this season.
The six short plays assembled here, cast with LCTC regulars and newbies alike, leans more on laughs (Kristy Lin Billuni’s “Maybe, Baby” is a particularly hilarious send-up of lesbian couplings and an over-reliance on PC-appropriate terminology), but is deeply rooting in sincerity regarding the importance of the “found family” to queer identity. Those of us Gen-X and older recall being terrified at being outed to the family that bore us, which made finding sympathetic allies a literal lifeline for us.
The plays of Found Family will occasionally make “generation gap” jokes about “the kids these days” (particularly, Michael Conner’s “Who Even Drives?”), but a piece like Duncan Pflaster’s modern-set “Soldier Boi” may resonate even deeper for those of us who still remember the days of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” These plays hilariously document how a queer person’s need for family, found or not, hasn’t diminished; it’s just evolved.
Dom Refuerzo and Max Seijas in ‘Found Family.’ Photo by Alandra Hileman
(One hopes that message lingered with the grade-school-aged kid who attended opening night with, one assumes, their mother. The little one certainly had interesting reactions to all the blue language from the characters.)
The HVAC of the Native Sons Building has always been a curious contradiction to the updated restrooms and elevators. One is always grateful that the latter two are supported and maintained, but the flow of air continues to lag behind. To sit in the Phoenix Theatre for two acts and two hours was to watch the CO² readings on my Aranet4 creep ever high, peaking around 2,967ppm by the end of the show.
Still, if you’re well-masked (as always, I was in my Flo Mask) and want reassurance of the power of queer family as we enter another goddamned Trump era, this show will probably comfort you more than the folks you might have to see this Thanksgiving.
FOUND FAMILY runs through December 7 (no performances Thanksgiving weekend) at the Phoenix Theatre, SF. Tickets and further info here.
