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My overall impression
A tremendously engaging, creative and constantly surprising one-act that treats its subject – the incredible 1970’s Playboy magazine interview with beauty queen/singer/orange-juice-spokesperson/notorious homophobe Anita Bryant (who supplies plenty of rope with which to hang herself with her own words) – with humor, sensitivity, and complexity. John Copeland is luminous as Anita, presenting her as by turns innocent, engaging, vain, gentle, obsessive, horrifying, vulnerable and pitiable. The play provides a lot of laughs, but it’s not strictly a comedy. It captures the serious consequences of Bryant’s single-minded rampage to stamp out homosexuality, but refuses to reduce her to caricature.
