United States premiere of HAPPY ENDINGS ARE EXTRA,
a startling new play by Ashraf Johaardien.
“Chantelle, always sensuous and low-key in the gifted San Diego newcomer Shahrik's interpretation, retaliates by having an anonymous fling with a man she bumped up against on a train. The implausible situation sinks Chantelle deeper into masochism and Gabriel into obsession: they're poison for one another, despite their protestations of love.” - Anne Marie Welsh, Union-Tribune Theater Critic
“Raygoza, Shahrik and Purvis have developed their characters so thoroughly, it is easy to forget we are watching a play. We have become voyeurs intruding into the private lives and thoughts of Gab, Chan, and Chris.” - TotalTheatre.com
Happy Endings Are Extra, a lyrical and sensual exploration of sexual identity, is set against the backdrop of Cape Town’s unsleeping world of massage parlours, boys for rent and sex for cash. The play explores the relationship between Gabriel, a bisexual man, and Chantelle, his fiancee. Chantelle pretends to be unconcerned by Gabriel’s sexual interests, but then he meets Chris, an underage rent-boy and falls in love with him. This mature, considered play deftly toys with its audience, allowing the viewer to be both compromised and affected by the desires and the sharp, confounding shifts in perspective and emotion that the play evokes.
Anahid Shahrik
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