That special friend
Leo and Samantha are Team Fat/Gay on stage now at Stage West Stage West puts gay/straight friendships centerstage RICH LOPEZ | Staff writerrich@dallasvoice.com Stage West continues its run of the tragi-comedy I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart through July 9.
Written by Morgan Gould, the play centers on Leo and Samantha, two 30-something-best-friend struggling writers who live together and face the challenges of adulting, careers and the introduction of someone else into their unique, perfect mix.
He’s gay. She’s fat. The characters refer to themselves at Team Fat/Gay. What transpires, though, is a funny and heartbreaking and insightful look at the valuable friendship between a gay guy and a straight gal. “All of us have a friendship like this,” director Jenna Burnett said by phone. “I have several gay men who are my close friends.” And many a gay male has had that (at least) one bestie who’s their cis-gal-pal (or otherwise) where the two exist in their own world with a velvet rope at the entrance before anyone else can enter.
Burnett and her cast cultivated this deep friendship over the course of weeks of rehearsal before the show made its regional premiere on June 15.
