Push/Pull
Harry Davis
Central Works
Dedication/Obsession. Self-esteem/Self-disgust. Fulfilling a dream/Living a delusion. Acceptable friendship/Forbidden Intimacy. Wanting to feel male/Wanting the feel of a male. Life seeking/Death wishing.
Where is the boundary between these extremes? When and how does the balance shift from one side to the other? Is the shift voluntary or fated … a push or a pull?
Such are the important, haunting, and eventually unanswered questions raised in the gripping, emotionally tense seventy-five minutes of playwright Harry Davis’ first ever play to be premiered in a professional performance, Push/Pull. Davis’ incredibly impressive initial work is the seventy-sixth world premiere for Berkeley’s Central Works; and the quality of the script, the direction, and the acting is all the proof needed that this treasured gem of the Bay Area is still thriving in the company’s thirty-fifth season.
After a devastating break-up with his girlfriend Abigail that leads him to check himself into a mental institution, twenty-four-year-old Chuck decides upon release to look up his old school buddy, Nolan, an amateur body-builder hoping someday to go pro and escape his hated job as a Safeway bagger. Chuck is in no way a muscle man himself; but in his hope someday to win back Abigail, he asks Nolan to help him “get jacked” (i.e., develop a few of those now hidden muscles in his arms and chest).
Nolan agrees but only in return that Chuck become his coach as he practices required poses for an upcoming amateur body-building contest. Nolan needs a win there to put him on the path to the pro circuit he so desperately desires in order to escape his present life living at home with a father who will not even let him lock his own bedroom door. Although Chuck knows nothing about coaching a body-builder, he agrees; and the two begin to meet regularly in Nolan’s small, cluttered garage now outfitted as a gym.
The strenuous work-outs with weighted barbells and the practice of bare-skin poses displaying bulging, rippling muscles are not just words in a script but take place mere inches from audience members in the intimate, Central Works’ setting. Purple veins popping out of a strained neck, arm and leg muscles suddenly ballooning to the point of near explosion, and eyes that protrude as if they might soon shoot out across the room — all occur in real time, with actual weights. Amid pained, verbal grunts and nasal sniffs like that of a bull, we witness workouts as two young men also bare their souls, share their dreams and doubts, and eventually deepen a friendship beyond anything they probably expected or even meant to happen.
Each of the two actors before us embed impressions that will long reside in our memories — impressions of two young men fighting internal demons where daily they seek to better their lives and their futures through a focused, even extreme regimen of physical exercise. That is particularly true for Nolan, who all but worships his idol, Zyzz, a famous body builder whose massive-muscled, pumped-up, posed picture hangs in prominence in Nolan’s gym-of-sorts. Matthew Kropschot is nothing short of stunningly stellar in the role of Nolan — not only for his real-time demonstration of physical strength but for the extreme intensity he exudes every moment on stage.
Nolan never steps lightly; he stomps. He doesn’t sip a needed drink after a workout; he gulps a gallon of milk like it is his first liquid in days. He is never subtle but instead is blunt, boisterous, and bombastic in volume and intention. His boiling point is dangerously low as anger outbursts can erupt in a second — anger generated from his frustration with his controlling father, with taunting teens at the Safeway, and particularly with himself. And he is reckless in dangerous ways with his own health in the name of self-improvement.
But there are other, less visible emotions that also bubble to Nolan’s surface — a helping hand for a guy struggling, a caring for a friend in sudden pain, a tenderness to a touch not expected to be given or received. And he is surprisingly also a poet, reciting one about Sisyphus pushing the rock that is a mirror into his own inner, hidden self.
Likewise, Andre Amarotico awards us with a performance that is at times painful to watch, at times truly inspiring. His Clark confesses his own long list of self-doubts and even self-hates (“I am balding … I am ugly … I am this weird thing”) but then turns around ready to find a path for a renewed life through his own body building and through his renewed friendship with Nolan (“I want to feel good about myself; I want to feel male”). His own intensity is written in a brow knitted tight and in eyes that dart one minute in wild search and then stare the next with a ghostly gaze. His present life that plays out before us is one of approach and avoidance; and we — like he — are often left constantly guessing on which side of the equation he will land.
The vulnerability and yet determination of both young men is palpable as they struggles to overcome what they both perceive are the bad hands they have been dealt in life.
Gary Graves masterfully, sensitively, and often boldly directs the two principals to reap the maximum possible from Harry Davis’ physically and emotionally demanding script. Into the scenes, he helps create moments shocking, moments mesmerizing, moments fascinating, and moments surprisingly erotic. All occur within a space quite claustrophobic with a garage’s clutter of boxes, equipment, and just plain junk as so well designed by Joseph Nelmeth and lit with telling shifts of mood and time by Gary Graves. Muscles honed and those still in development are in full display given the array of tank, tee-shirt, and shorts costumes designed by Tammy Berlin.
What makes for me Davis’ Push/Pull an enigma is how the playwright chooses to end the play. For me, I have trouble justifying why particular choices are made in the script’s final unfolding — not by the principals’ own choices but by the fate of the script itself. I am still trying to make meaning, if there is one, to one particular defining incident. But maybe the post-questioning and reflection is part of the playwright’s intent for me as an audience member.
In any case, a standing O to a playwright’s stirring debut and to the herculean efforts by both director and actors to ensure his Push/Pull premiere is well worth a night of live theatre.
Rating: 4 E
Push/Pull continues through March 30, 2025, in a seventy-five minute (no intermission) world premiere performance at Central Works, at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berkeley, CA. Tickets are available online at https://centralworks.org.
Photo Credits: Robbie Sweeny
