The Motherfucker with the Hat – NationalTheatre (Lyttleton)

Stephen Adly Guirgis‘ 2011 play ‘The Motherfucker with the Hat’ is a welcome breath of fresh air in the National’s programme. I was intrigued by the title, the poster and, I’ll admit, the fact that Ricardo Chavira (a face well known to me from endless hours of watching Desperate Housewives) was to star in it; the blurb didn’t give much away and nothing really prepared me to just how incredible the show would be.

Guirgis’ writing, which won him this year’s Pulitzer for Drama for ‘Between Riverside and Crazy’, has an intoxicating rhythm that clicked with me from the get go. It’s fast, it’s sharp and it flows almost  like a musical composition. Copious amounts of swearing is to be expected, the hint is in the title so you can’t really complain about it, and you really shouldn’t! This is creative and hilarious swearing and it’s an essential part of the play’s ‘score’.

Director Indhu Rubasingham does great justice to the text and gets the best out of her strong cast.  The central performance given by Ricardo Chavira is spot on, he is hilarious and honest as ex-con Jackie trying to clean up his act, and you find yourself rooting for him in spite of all his shortcomings in a life that has not been an easy one. His on/off girlfriend Veronica is fiercely portrayed by Flor De Liz Perez (the actors and the characters are Latinos,  something so rarely seen on the London stage; more please!), the second American import in the cast. Perez skilfully inhabits Veronica’s wild character and she gets to dish out some of the best swearing in the show, which she totally nails. The central relationship is completely believable and the chemistry is perfect, both in love and hate.

Then there’s Jackie’s sponsor, Ralph. A self-professed asshole, brilliantly played here by Alec Newman (British, but you honestly wouldn’t know it), who manages to make him very funny although he is infuriating and one of the ugliest characters I’ve ever seen on a stage. I kept waiting for someone to break a chair on his head or something; there’s a great fight scene towards the end, choreographed to perfection by Kev McCurdy, which is very satisfying to watch. Ralph’s un-loving wife Victoria is played by the other Brit, a very funny fed-up and at times heartbreaking Nathalie Armin.

But the real heart of the show for me was Cousin Julio, the glorious Yul Vazquez who originated the role in New York and was nominated for a Tony Award for it. And you can see why! Apart from being the master of scene-stealing and the kind of comic actor that makes you want to clap everytime he finishes a sentence, he represents Jackie’s family and what family means for Latinos. His performance is beautiful to watch and he has such a strong chemistry with Chavira and Newman that kept me thinking I wish I could just hang out with these guys for a bit!

The Motherfucker with the Hat is on at the National Theatre unil the 20th August. I urge you to catch it because it’s a definite truffle and because there is nothing else like it in London and there probably won’t be again for ages.

Tip: The best way to get good seats at the National Theatre for an affordable price is through the Friday Rush: every Friday at 1pm they release a certain number of £20 tickets for the following week’s performance.

⭐️  Nominated for 2 Evening Standard Theatre Awards ⭐️