Toxic Testosterone

A wounded, snarling male ego seethes beneath the surface of “Stain,” a clumsy melodrama by Tony Glazer, now at the Kirk. And it tries to take a bite out of everything in its path.Not that Mr. Glazer’s play (in an unpolished production by Scott C. Embler), is aware of its own sexism. “Stain” seems to think it is mocking and dismantling the crude frat-boy perspective frequently espoused by its male characters.But the suburban landscape sketched by “Stain” is all too familiar. The women nag and whimper, knit needlepoint, and set the table for dinner. Meanwhile the men forcibly take what they want from women — knocking them around if they have to — and complain about paying child support.What’s so odd about Mr. Embler’s production is the way that it trolls for cheap laughs — jokes about Grandma’s sex drive, foulmouthed teenage banter — while nonchalantly presenting racist rants and violent acts against women. It seems as though Mr. Embler saw no need to mediate between the comedic styles of Neil Simon and Neil LaBute.The play’s uncomfortable tone is set early on, in a long lecture Arthur (Jim O’Connor) gives to his 15-year-old son Thomas (Tobias Segal) about women. With frathouse crudeness, Arthur teaches his son that there are three types of women: one-night stands, buddies you sleep with, and “special ones” that you marry. With brute economy, Arthur sketches his vision of the world: a boys’ club threatened by the emotional pull of certain women. And though the play treats Arthur in broad, comic terms, his perspective is really the play’s perspective: Women are trouble.First off, there’s Arthur’s ex-wife, Julia (Summer Crockett Moore), who tricked him into a marriage under false pretenses. Then there’s Carla (Karina Arroyave), young Thomas’s older girlfriend, who claims he got her pregnant. And finally there’s Julia’s mother, Theresa (Joanna Bayless, sporting an incongruous accent), a meddlesome old widow who took Julia and Thomas in after the divorce. Between Arthur, a weekend dad who spends most of his time spewing hatred and filth, and Julia, a beleaguered single mom who refuses to treat her son like an adult, there’s a profound shortage of affection in Thomas’s life. To fill the void, he smokes marijuana with a buddy (Peter Brensinger) and has sex with Carla; neither works. What he really wants is to know the whole sordid history of his parents’ divorce — which gets parceled out in a series of over-the-top scenes that grow increasingly mawkish.All this might be unwatchable were it not for the charisma of Mr. Segal, a young actor much better than his role and, indeed, than the play. In “From Up Here” at MTC last spring, he held his own against the formidable Julie White. Here, he manages to make every scene better simply by being in it. He’s a gentle soul, like the film actor Michael Cera, but there’s a tremendous force in his featherweight presence. He’s very funny in unexpected ways, and he seems incapable of striking a false note, no matter how much the dialogue prods him to do so.It is his character, Thomas, that stands the best chance of breaking the male mold articulated by “Stain.” He listens closely to Arthur, and he’s capable of treating women badly. But in Mr. Segal’s precise performance, there are hints that Thomas sees the harshly toxic effects of so much male aggression. Will he be the first man in three generations of his family to choose a different route? God, I hope so. As “Stain” amply demonstrates, a world where men and women use sex as a bludgeon and affection as currency is a grim, airless place.Until August 23 (410 W. 42nd St., between Ninth and Dyer avenues, 212-279-4200).

Toxic Testosterone

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