BOWL EP Is The Explosive New Work We Have Been Waiting For — Review

“Is y’all ready…” asks a demon-clown named Lemon Pepper Wings, freshly spawned in anime cosplayer-garb from an empty swimming pool, “...for a mutha fuckin SHOW?” 

At this point in the script for Bowl EP, a wild, near-unclassifiable new work debuting at Vineyard Theatre (co-producing with National Black Theater, in association with The New Group), writer/director Nazareth Hassan predicts that an off-Broadway crowd likely won’t give Lemon Pepper Wings the enthusiastic reply she/he/they are looking for. 

“(audience is lame cuz theatre is lame),” Hassan sighs, via stage direction.

Too true. Thankfully, we have explosively theatrical work like Bowl EP to occasionally jolt us awake. The greatest thrill of Bowl EP is its full-hearted embrace of theatricality, even as Hassan looks to upend our more stagnant traditions while building a muscular, musical stage language all of their own. Only when Hassan loses focus on stagecraft in the piece’s more stagnant final section does this oft-rousing work ultimately falter. 

Bowl EP is equal parts abstract tragicomedy and rap elegy for lost love. In and around a drained swimming pool, two queer Black artists idle away the time skating, smoking, flirting and spitting rhymes. Scenic designers Adam Rigg and Anton Volovsek have impressively gutted the Vineyard space, placing the audience on all sides of the pool (their “bowl”) and conjuring a desolate urban landscape. This softhearted pair, Kelly K Klarkson (Essence Lotus) and Quentavius da Quitter (Oghenero Gbaje), plan to launch as a rap duo, and as the days pass (or weeks…or years?) the two workshop verses and throw out ideas for a group name.

“Raw Octopus?” “Raw Octupussy.” “Raw Octopus In My Pussy;” “Raw Octopus Make Me Vomit In My Own Pussy.” 

Wild suggestions parry back and forth, growing more deranged as Kelly and Quentavius get progressively more fucked up (vaping gives way to MDMA, which gives way to acid). The play’s first half floats dreamily through hazy vignettes, like a drugged-up Gen-Z twist on Waiting for Godot. Hassan is restrained and careful with language, dropping insights into the flirty, self-possessed Quentavius and the shyer, uncertain Kelly with precision. 

The text is refreshingly blunt about sex, kink and queer intimacy. This horny pair’s halting experimentation with biting and choking is depicted as awkward and a little dangerous, yet undeniably sexy. Gbaje and Lotus are both superb, skating around each other with tenderness and occasional (truthful) bursts of cruelty. 

A hard left-turn arrives with the entrance of Lemon Pepper Wings, a demon that bursts forth from inside Quentavius and takes charge of the play. Felicia Curry is astonishing and unsettling in the role, and at first, the jarring tonal shift is welcome. Goaded by LPW, Quentavius and Kelly rap their hearts out, and here Free Fool’s fierce music and defiant lyrics shine bright. 

But Hassan then shifts into a long, long monologue from LPW describing, in stultifying detail, the tragic future ahead for Quentavius and Kelly’s relationship. It’s a frustrating turn from showing to telling, and in spite of (or maybe because of) Curry’s manic delivery, this extended elegy grows tiresome. 

After losing much of its propulsive energy in this section, Bowl EP never quite regains its footing. But this is nonetheless a riveting, inventive new work, and a powerful announcement of a new talent in Hassan. 

Bowl EP is now in performance at the Vineyard Theatre in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.