Dezi Gallegos is not lacking chutzpah. At eighteen, his solo show "God Fights the Plague" attempts to bite off the central theme from the last, oh, five thousand years: Is There a God? As a performer, Gallegos has some promising moments, especially when he goes deeper into character with his voice. He doesn't do it enough yet. This is a show taken from interviews Gallegos did with various religious people on the street, and unfortunately some of the stories, performed verbatim, are interesting and some are not. The show feels long.
We liked the witch, we liked his opening character, the Christian woman on the bus, and Sylvia Boorstein, his American Buddhist had interesting things to say, especially the conversation about "Why me? Well, why not me?"
But, like this picture, if you look really closely you see he is holding up a little Buddha, but if you don't look all that closely…well, it's a little creepy. Sorry, but Dezi Gallegos is too young to be obsessing about this kind of thing. His director, Charlie Varon, well OK. Charlie has a few miles on him. He's allowed.
RATINGS: ☼ ☼
The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "God Fights the Plague" Two Stars. Gallegos has been given a long summer run, so he has time to do some constructive editing and lose himself in his characters. For us, Act One is too long. Act Two is better, because he has gotten a little more desperate. But it doesn't feel like a Two Act play yet, and the desperation drops away by the ending. Lots of death, lots of worry, just what you want on a Sunday night.
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"Dezi Gallegos: God Fights the Plague"
The Marsh
1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco
Sat. and Sun. through Aug. 10
$15-$35
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