188 words about The Motherfucker With the Hat

When it's pie, don't lie

Stephen Adly Guirgis emphasizes the notion of love in the author’s note to his 2011 Tony winner, instructing actors taking the play on (which included Chris Rock and Bobby Cannavale in the original Broadway cast) to speak their truth in a way that conveys love for the role, that love is the opposite of indifference, that the five characters are anything but apathetic and “love and need each other far more than they hate or are indifferent to one another.” But it’s this last bit that’s most instructive: The Motherfucker With the Hat is a play not of love, but of need. Oh, sure, it’s funny — the dialogue is littered with imagery and one-liners I actually chuckled aloud to, which I never do. But love? Guirgis’ efforts excepted, that’s a lot harder to see. Aside from Veronica’s drug habit, each person’s “love” could better be read as an addiction than an affection. The play exactly as it is could be from any time in the last 30 years, but that clouded emotional confusion is as old as addiction, as old as need, as old as love itself.