The Motherf**ker with the Hat review, Lyttelton Theatre

Sometimes you stumble on a play that's about everything and nothing. So it is with Stephen Adly Guirgis's, The Motherf**ker with the Hat, a piece that begs a small, intimate space, but which works brilliantly in the vastness of the Lyttelton Theatre. It's a cracking watch, aided and abetted by designer Robert Jones' clever use of moving stages.

The story is a rumination on love that reduces sex to currency; something sought or supplied as a means of comfort or affection, distraction, gain, kindness, cruelty, thrills, and ultimately, validation. It's about damaged people busting boundaries in order to feel. In doing so, they sometimes hurt those they most care about. Should infidelity always be a deal breaker, even when it's just a function of mood or availability?  In The Motherf**ker with the Hat, we explore those questions through the vexed and complex relationship of  a young Puerto Rican couple in New York, Jackie and Veronica.

Jackie is out after a prison sentence for dealing drugs. A recovering alcoholic with an AA sponsor - the righteous and irritating WASP, Ralph - he struggles with his emotions. Veronica is still using cocaine and Jackie's just found a man's hat in her apartment. Is Veronica cheating on him? Who with? That's pretty much the plot of  The Motherf**ker with the Hat. It's the subtext that's interesting. This meshes together organically in Indu Rubasingham's bracing production, which runs 110 minutes without a break. It is a small piece rammed with intelligence, humour, profanity, slapstick, and pathos.

In conclusion: Ricardo Chavira and Yul Vazquez as Jackie and his fey cousin Julio who sprays plants and creates whole-food enchiladas while threatening a Van Damme on their enemies, are loveable and powerfully hewn. Flor De Liz Perez is a vulnerable, tricksy Veronica. Alec Newman's Ralph is creepily controlled and Nathalie Armin plays his long suffering wife.

References
The Motherf**cker with the Hat, Tickets


Lyttelton  Theatre, Southbank, London SE1 9PX               Run ends 20 August