It was Holy Saturday, and a big-ass bunny was shaking her tail outside Theatre Rhinoceros on 18th Street, trying to fluff up an audience for opening night of “Gumiho.”
The play, written by Nina Ki and directed by Crystal Liu, is not about Haribo candies shaped like sex workers (Though you’d be excused for that assumption, given the popularity of penis cookies around the corner).
You’d also be wrong in supposing that the ratchet rabbit on the sidewalk was an Easter promotion. In a pre-show curtain warmer and some later hotter interludes, this lewd, lumpen anti-Harvey stepped inside and onto the Rhino stage for battle scenes and erotic dances alongside a vulpine fellow Furry.
The sex-edged clowning by Kitty Moon, as Rabbit, and Kitty Me-Ow, as Fox (in fantastic-beyond-mascot animal costumes by Christina Linskey and Liu) serves as far more than a garnish for “Gumiho”’s human characters and dialogue: It establishes the cultural lens and light tone that buoy the script’s occasional tilts toward melodrama.
Rewarding role-play
In traditional Korean tales, the gumiho is a trickster figure, a cunning nine-tailed fox that can transform into a beautiful woman. The rabbit, tokki or doltokki, is symbolic of innocence and gentleness. When a fox and a rabbit interact in traditional tales from East Asian cultures, their antics generate both friction and humor.
In playwright Ki’s autobiographical rondelay, a bedhopping odyssey of self-realization in queer Los Angeles, her fictionalized avatar, Kam (Raye Goh), is on an ego-dystonic downslide after a brief period of notoriety from appearing on “Loose Lips,” a queer reality TV program.
Having split with Janette, her partner of three years, and on the verge of turning 30, Kam puts on a foxy front to protect her inner rabbit as she ricochets through a series of one-night stands and brief situationships.
Six paramour roles are played, three apiece, by Zolboo Namkhaidorj and Annie Wang, who deftly etch a half dozen distinctive personalities despite each character’s limited stage time. Even within her individual roles, Wang expertly toggles from tender to tart, languorous to venomous. Her disciplined nonchalance and sharp comic timing merit more frequent appearances in Bay Area productions.
Hastily heartwarming
Kam’s misguided, ever-darkening sexcapades are punctuated by heart-to-heart gab sessions with her lifelong friend Hyun-Joo (Dom Refuerzo), a graduate student of folklore whose dialogue neatly provides context for the animal-skinned sidebars.
While Ki’s smooth deployment of Hyun-Joo as an interpreter for the audience demonstrates real playwriting smarts, her development of Hyun-Joo as a character is one of “Gumiho”’s weak spots.
Amidst this showcase for realistic characters whose personalities transcend fox-rabbit binaries, Hyun-Joo (who, ironically, is written as nonbinary) comes off as 100% bunny. She’s spent years being slowly steamrolled into roadkill by oblivious, self-centered Kam. In coupling them up for a romantic conclusion, “Gumiho” slides from folk tale influence toward fairy tale goo.
Still, while revision may improve future productions, this is clever and necessary work. “Gumiho” successfully represents –and centers– Asian-American AFAB (assigned female at birth) queers with sharp wits and strong libidos. It’s welcome and refreshing to see on stage.
Also refreshing to see, on the ceiling, were Colin Johnson’s inventive video projections, including images from the perspective of a sex partner lying on their back. Olivia Vazquez’s immersive sound and Aaron Simunovich’s intimate in-the-round setting further added to the latest demonstration of Theatre Rhinoceros’ transformative black box magic; this time replete with rabbit.
‘Gumiho,’ through May 11. $17.50-$50. Theatre Rhinoceros. 4229 18th St. http://www.therhino.org
