Switch, The Welders
Brett Abelman's Switch, the newest production from the playwrights' collective The Welders, is positioned as an exploration of sexuality, gender, and how these impact our relationship with bodies (both our own and others). Switch wants its audience to enter into a celebration of those ideas, but unfortunately, spends too long asking the wrong questions along the way.
The play centers around DC Pride, and Ty Velines' Lark is positioned as our guide. Velines has firecracker energy to spare, and commands the audience's attention in every scene they are in, but almost singlehandedly seems to carry the burden (and emotional labor) of dragging a crowd of cis straights (both onstage and off) into a brave new world of genderswapping magic and queer identity. There's an odd tone at times in the play where characters, sometimes Lark and sometimes others, played by Matt Baughman and Chloe Mikala, walk our token-straights Leila and Doug (Mary Myers and Anderson Wells) throug…
The play centers around DC Pride, and Ty Velines' Lark is positioned as our guide. Velines has firecracker energy to spare, and commands the audience's attention in every scene they are in, but almost singlehandedly seems to carry the burden (and emotional labor) of dragging a crowd of cis straights (both onstage and off) into a brave new world of genderswapping magic and queer identity. There's an odd tone at times in the play where characters, sometimes Lark and sometimes others, played by Matt Baughman and Chloe Mikala, walk our token-straights Leila and Doug (Mary Myers and Anderson Wells) throug…
