“As I understand it, everyone has the right to their own happiness. What if my happiness has to be based on the unhappiness of others? What then?”
So asks Slatko, the pimp in ExPats Theatre’ wickedly good Testosterone, a no-holds-barred satire of how gendered hegemony has become the way of the world.
Playwright Rebekka Kricheldorf has said that her bitingly witty fable, a 2012 commission by Germany’s Staatstheater Kassel, was loosely inspired by a Grimm Brothers folktale in which a father has two sons. The older son is clever and intelligent, the younger one is stupid. In particular, the younger son does not know how to feel fear (hence the tale’s title, “The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear”).
Kricheldorf’s provocative parable (translated by Neil Blackadder) sets up a well-to-do patriarch (Fabian) with a good son (Ingo), who is a wimpy surgeon engaged to his therapist (Solveig, who helped him overcome his fear of blood), and a bad son (Raul), whose fearlessness manifests as macho pugnaciousness. Fabian, Ingo, and Solveig, do-gooders to the core, live in smug comfort in Good Neighborhood, a wealthy community not so much gated as barricaded against Bad Neighborhood, where poverty and unrest thrive and hitman-for-hire Raul resides.
Testosterone interogates the apparent contradistinction between good son and bad son and in doing so skewers how much the moneyed happiness in Good Nabe is predicated on there being squalor and exploitation in Bad.
As the show’s scenic designer, Jonathan Dahm Robertson evokes upper-crust, earth-toned minimalism in Fabian’s geometric living room furnished in posh leather and fine wood. As the show’s projection designer, Robertson delivers vivid imagery via a wall-mounted video screen that functions as both an alarming news feed and an armed surveillance/security system.
There’s an unmissable sense of sanctimonious insularity among this household: patriarch Fabian (a properly authoritative Eli EL), good son Ingo (an appealingly dweeby Elgin Martin), and Ingo’s therapist/betrothed Solveig (a smart-cookie Amberrain Andrews). So you just know there will be intruders.
And sure enough, there comes one: Silvana, a young woman who works the streets in Bad Neighborhood, having been pimped by her father and abuser Slatko. Turns out, Fabian and the fam have been supporting Silvana through the Adopt-a-Hooker program — a sample of the play’s dark humor of which there is much. Silvana (a lively and likeable Jenna Rossman) has braved the barricades and come in gratitude and hopes of sanctuary.
Also dropping by is bad son Raul (Gary DuBreuil in a chest-pounding, muscle-flexing, showstopping parody of manhood run amok). Moneybags Fabian, in a Li’l Lear gesture, has summoned Raul to learn how he intends to divide his estate.
Raul’s bad-boy badinage is both a blast and loaded with insight:
RAUL: You should be grateful I exist. Because without me, all this couldn’t exist. If everyone was like you, who’d keep your plastic paradise safe from outside? …Never forget: you need me more than I need you.
Ingo and Solveig together on the sofa sing a sweet and silly duet, “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” he on uke, she on triangle. But as the tension between bad bro and good bro mounts, we begin to see Ingo disparage Solveig in a sexist way that opens to question exactly how good a guy he is.
A decidedly unwelcome visitor is Slatko, the pimp, who has barged in to retrieve his money-making property, his daughter Silvia. Bruce Alan Rauscher’s portrayal of Slatko is among the production’s priceless surprises; he somehow makes the character’s villainous sleaze hilarious.
Given Slatko’s function in the plot, it almost feels wrong to find him so funny, because in a twist, he abducts Solveig. This precipitates a nervy caper in which Fabian and Ingo retain Raul to rescue her, and Slatko gets killed and becomes a ghost (which would be flagged as a spoiler were there not a press photo showing an axe in his skull).
The show is a wild ride of tone shifts, from simply silly to comic to coarse to grotesque, all of it an adventure conducted and directed masterfully by Karin Rosnizeck. Watching the cast’s broad acting style, with its deft timing and clever excess, becomes an enjoyment all its own.
Donna Breslin’s costume designs — from Fabian’s gaudily ornate robe, Ingo’s preppy sportcoat and sweater, and Solveig’s sleek fur-trimmed sheath to Silvia’s sparkly short shorts, Raul’s ammo belt and camo pants, and Slatko’s Grim Reaper greatcoat — conveyed social status eloquently. And there’s a scene in which prop dismembered body parts play a gasp-inducing role, a credit to Lily Gershon, Edith MacCrea, and Sam Buggeln (The Cherry Arts).
One of the deep satisfactions of taking in this ExPats production is tracking the multiplicity of targets of the show’s ceaseless satire. So much is spoofed, the play seems at times like sketch comedy on steroids — which in itself is a hoot. Holding the whole together, though, grounding it politically at this fraught moment in history, is some serious significance about inequality, hierarchy, and identity: Those who have not only need there to be have-nots. Those who dominate not only need their victims. Those who have and those who dominate are afraid they would be nobody otherwise.
Don’t miss Testosterone. Get juiced on tough truth.
Running Time: Approximately one hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.
Testosterone plays through April 6, 2025, presented by ExPats Theatre, performing at Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lab 2, 1333 H St NE, Washington, DC. Showtimes are Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 2:30 pm. Tickets ($49 general admission, $44 for seniors, and $25 for students) are available online.
Testosterone
By Rebekka Kricheldorf
Translated by Neil Blackadder
CAST
Amberrain Andrews as Dr. Solveig Rieger (the spiritual advisor)
Gary DuBreuil as Raul Klemmer (the bad son)
Eli EL as Fabian Klemmer (the patriarch)
Elgin Martin as Dr. Ingo Klemmer (the good son)
Bruce Alan Rauscher as Slatko Bogdanovic (the pimp)
Jenna Rossman as Silvana Bogdanovic (the fallen woman)
PRODUCTION AND CREATIVE TEAM
Director: Karin Rosnizeck
Stage Manager/Production Manager: Shannon Saulnier
Fight/Intimacy Choreographer: Jon Beal
Costume Designer: Donna Breslin
Lighting Designer: Ian Claar
Graphic Design: Gary DuBreuil
Props: Lily Gershon, Edith MacCrea, and Sam Buggeln (The Cherry Arts)
Scenic/Projections Designer: Jonathan Dahm Robertson
Outreach Support: Vidyuth Streenivasan
Sound Designer: Jeffrey Stanley
Electrician: Pierce Stoneburner
SEE ALSO:
ExPats Theatre to present satirical comedy ‘Testosterone’ (news story, February 11, 2025)
