Writing: Articles & Essays
TBA Notebook: ‘Another You’ a riveting combo of beauty, cruelty
The Oregonian, September 14, 2005
The first image in Allen Johnson's one-man show "Another You" is of a man sitting on the toilet as a quote from Diane Arbus cascades out of loudspeakers: "Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding."
When we meet the swaggering Johnson, buttoning his fly, he's all tough guy in a New Jersey truck driver way but he's watching us... no... he's flirting with us. The juxtaposition of his raw male energy with his emotional honesty is intoxicating. You will follow this man anywhere.
He takes you into the underbelly of his life, sexual compulsions and quest for love and God. He has the poet's ear for language and the agility of a prizefighter so with one image and one gesture he knocks you flat with his stories.
The stories are brutal and tender: raped by his father as a boy, he grows up to experience real connection with this same man. Johnson offers no answers just a peculiar, unfathomable combination of beauty and cruelty that is riveting.
Director Sean Ryan deftly weaves the disparate parts using a lush soundtrack by Justin Gerardy, although Act II lacks the polish of Act I and the show needs a satisfying ending.