New York-based writer and solo performer Joe Hutcheson returns to the Cincinnati Fringe Festival with his new show, Son of a Hutch, a wryly funny riff on his memories of growing up gay in the shadow of his macho father.
Hutcheson had a huge hit at the 2011 Cincinnati Fringe with his play Miss Magnolia Beaumont Goes to Provincetown, winning the Critics’ Pick of the Fringe with his fanciful comic tale of a Civil War era Southern Belle who somehow becomes trapped in the body of a bewildered 21st-century gay man.
Son of a Hutch (again directed by Cheryl King) is a more personal story, chronicling Hutcheson’s growing revulsion to the family nickname “Hutch,” a moniker of expected masculinity that makes him feel an outsider. As a boy and a teenager he tries to gain the acceptance of his father, a seemingly obtuse slob often viewed watching sports on television and napping on his bright orange couch with his big beer gut protruding from his T-shirt. Communicating with Big Hutch is difficult. Little Hutch is more interested in cheerleading than football, and the gulf between father and son only widens as Little Hutch realizes he is gay.
Perhaps it’s not fair to compare Son of a Hutch to the thoroughly enjoyable Miss Magnolia, but without such a humorous and inventive concept to structure the show, the storytelling this time feels more conventionally autobiographical, with a gentler tone, a slower pace and a meandering focus that shifts back and forth in time to various reminiscences from Hutcheson’s life.
That’s not say that fans of Hutcheson and Miss Magnolia won’t enjoy themselves. If you had fun in 2011, by all means go again. There aren’t as many big laughs, but there are still many pleasures to be found. Hutcheson is a smart writer who often eschews the easy caricature to shed more nuanced light on the humanity of the characters he presents.
Son of a Hutch ultimately becomes a touching tribute to the man who Hutcheson spent years and years trying to understand and who finally teaches Little Hutch a fatherly lesson about a man’s capacity to love and to change.
Performance Note: SON OF A HUTCH will be presented only through the first weekend of the Fringe. Additional performances are Thursday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 9:15 p.m. and Sunday at 8:45 p.m. at Gateways to Healing (1206 Main St., Over-the-Rhine).
This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2014.