The play “Bowl EP,” written and directed by Nazareth Hassan, is really more of a double LP.
The titles of its discrete scenes (25 in total!) are projected as track names onto the sunken, in-the-round skatepark set of this exuberant premiere at the Vineyard Theater in Manhattan, co-produced with the National Black Theater in association with the New Group. The first half conjures a fun flirtation between two queer aspiring rappers, while the second is a jagged refraction of its ideas. At 80 minutes, the whole play pulses with a concentrated immediacy.
The main M.C.s, if you will, are the jovial Quentavius da Quitter (Oghenero Gbaje) and the seductively internal Kelly K Klarkson (Essence Lotus): two 20-somethings who skate absent-mindedly while spitting potential rhymes. While deciding on a name for their duo, they strike up a playful romance over an indeterminate period of time.
The two are tender with each other, fooling around between skate tricks and occasionally revealing glimpses of inner turmoil. Hassan charts these low-key adventures through impish scene titles (projected in inventive typefaces by Zavier Augustus Lee Taylor) like “picking a name for their rap group attempt four” and “skating and drinking.” The drained swimming pool that is Adam Rigg and Anton Volovsek’s set, and the skateboarders’ “bowl,” often places the actors below the gaze of the audience, which is seated on all four sides, lending an analytical lens to the stage interactions.
Substances, from the casual vape pen to MDMA, help the pair find inspiration and grow closer. But like most of what’s played off as typical youthful behavior, this recreational habit returns under a new light in the piece’s second half, which is triggered by an acid-fueled sex act between the couple.
That jarring shift comes with the arrival of Lemon Pepper Wings, a pangender demon who haunts Quentavius’s mind, and is suggested to have once pestered Kelly. (Hassan, who is nonbinary, winks at the clunkiness of communicating gender by referring to the creature as every combination of “he/she/they.”)
Lemon is played by Felicia Curry in a bravura psychedelic freakout of a commedia dell’arte performance that begins in full anime cosplay, plush head mask and all. (DeShon Elem’s costume design here wildly expands from D.I.Y. skater outfits.) Shattering the fourth wall — all four of them, in this case — as the “patron demon of the intimate,” Lemon cuts through the issues pushing the lovers together and pulling them apart.
It’s here that Hassan reveals the play’s wearied humanism and their insight into the hardships of love among the marginalized. The extended fugue in the second half arrives a tad violently, though Kate McGee’s lighting and Ryan Gamblin’s sound designs keep up with its breakneck pace.
The action regrounds itself with four full-out rap numbers, composed by Hassan and the musician Free Fool, that give the main duo a chance to voice their thoughts directly. The music feels at home in the contemporary queer rap landscape, affecting the techno trippiness of Brockhampton and the ballroom cattiness of Azealia Banks. The lyrics, by Free Fool, are clever and brazenly sexy.
Through it all, Gbaje and Lotus turn in sweet, honest performances with a charming attraction. (And Lotus, in particular, can really ride a beat, especially when a tiny treadmill appears onstage for them to catwalk.) While “Bowl EP” delves into stormy psychological territory, it does not come off as a work in thrall to trauma — a rarity these days. Instead it offers an extended playtime for queer Black people.
With an off-kilter, episodic structure, it feels distinctly of the TikTok age, without that medium’s scattershot brainrot. But Hassan harnesses its sense of psychic chaos into a messy, poignant and memorable new work.
Bowl EP
Through June 8 at the Vineyard Theater, Manhattan; vineyardtheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes.
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