By: Darryl Reilly
Jean Genet’s subversive writings are an inspiration for the exuberant performance piece This Is Real. The magnetic cast of 10 is nude during the wild prologue, “Home on the Range” is a motif, and a climax is reached when a young man in a Revolutionary War outfit with his genitals exposed burns an American flag.
Genet’s groundbreaking 1957 play The Balcony looms large here. Its upscale brothel with pillars of the community clients, wise sex workers, imperious madam, role playing, and a revolution taking place outside, all figure in the cheeky, abstractly absurd, and chilling This Is Real. There are also references to Querelle of Brest, The Thief’s Journal, and Genet’s pro-Palestinian views and his anti-Americanism. Other eclectic source material includes American history documents, and samplings from Emma Lazurs, Henry Ford, and Vergil’s Aeneid.
“This Is Real is my small attempt to scream into the howling void of this American moment,” states director David Herskovits in the show’s promotional material. “No one needs a theater director to tell them that the body politic is sick. Masked federal agents are shooting people in our streets today. Tomorrow looks worse. I fight where I live with the skills I have. I fight in the arts. Every day I only feel greater urgency to create ‘Degenerate Theater’ in our diseased world.”
Besides his vigorous and picturesque staging of This Is Real, the elfin Mr. Herskovits appears in it as a merry master of ceremonies often directly addressing the audience. The show was created by Herskovits in collaboration with its grand ensemble. They are Queerly Femmetastic, James Tigger! Ferguson, Daddy Ho, Susannah MacLeod, J Molière, Timiki Salinas, TANSY, Mari Vial-Golden, and Merlin Whitehawk.
The audience sits on vintage chairs or stands during the opening lobby-set sequence which has the nude cast enacting sex worker and client bits from The Balcony for about 12 minutes. “I don’t come to this place for truth; I come for illusion!” Due to the nudity, smart phones are checked in beforehand. The gold rope is raised, the lavish red curtains are drawn, and the audience enters the auditorium.
The stage is mostly bare, though an elaborate ladder gets a lot of use and there is a sound technician at a table. We are in for an hour of wackiness with hard-edged political subtext as the company performs vaudeville-style vignettes and spouts hilarious non sequiturs. An expressionless young stage crew assist, adding to the mirth and searing ambiguity.
Scenic designer Normandy Sherwood’s artful minimalism is the perfect landscape for this outrageous exhibition. Karen Boyer’s costume design is flamboyance par excellence. Lighting designer Marika Kent’s frenetic varying hues range from stark brightness to moody dimness. Herskovits’ bracing sound design is rendered onstage by jovial Jesse Freedman.
“The work of Jean Genet has inspired me for decades,” states Herskovits. “One thing I especially admire about Genet is his unflinching honesty in confronting power. He does not settle for judgments. He is never prim or pious. In this world there are and have always been powerful groups and groups of rebels. Genet knows that neither of these groups is right and neither is evil.”
Genet’s counterculture spirt is faithfully resurrected by the Target Margin Theater at their Sunset Park, Brooklyn, venue The Doxsee. This Is Real is a beguiling and incendiary entertainment.
This Is Real (through April 5, 2026)
Target Margin Theater
The Doxsee, 232 52nd Street, in Brooklyn
For tickets, visit www.targetmargin.org
Running time: 70 minutes with no intermission