CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

“Can I Be Frank?” is the Most Important Show in New York Right Now

If I’d gone to see Morgan Bassichis’s show “Can I Be Frank?” when I meant to, when it premiered at La Mama in 2024, or even at the SoHo Playhouse last summer, when it won two Obie Awards, or even if I’d gone earlier this run – its third – back at the SoHo Playhouse, starting May 21,¹ I would have felt far less loss this year.

Morgan’s work brings back friends — ancestors, allies, friends, lost comrades — and re-populates the air with them. Elizabeth and I walked home through downtown streets thick with their beloved spirits. Can I tell you to get to the Playhouse before “Can I Be Frank?” ends on June 27th because it will make you feel better, and less alone? Yes. Go.

Morgan Bassichis wrote and performs “Can I Be Frank?” around the work of performance artist, comedian, and songwriter Frank Maya; work that was carefully archived and posted by one of Maya’s ex-lovers, the choreographer, Neil Greenberg. Thus, one act of loving remembering begets another, and Bassichis’s work begins.

Maya was among the first openly gay comedians on network television; the first to appear on MTV’s “Half-Hour Comedy Hour”, and the first to star in his own half-hour special on the Comedy........

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