By Annette Hinkle
Are you a man with discerning taste in color? Do you know the difference between tuille and velour, but still enjoy kicking back with the boys to watch sports? If so, then you'll probably be able to identify with self described "renaissance geek" Paul Stroili.
Stroili brings "Straight Up With a Twist," his one-man play, to the Bay Street Theatre this Saturday, October 16 for shows at 7 and 9:30 p.m. The play, which this weekend is being performed as a benefit for Group for the South Fork, has been a huge hit in Los Angeles, where Stroili lives with his wife, Monica Kaiser, and works as an actor.
In recent years, "metrosexual" is a fashionable term that has come into common usage to represent a class of straight men who have acquired a certain level of taste in food, design and personal grooming habits. The Word Spy, a website dedicated to current vernacular, defines metrosexual as (n.) "An urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle."
And while the term is close, it isn't quite where Stroili is coming from with his show.
"'Renaissance geek' is the term I use," says Stroili. "It's like metrosexuals, urban guys obsessed with appearance, but the metrosexual character has since been defined as someone like Tony Randall in the 'Odd Couple,' with a certain foppishness. But we're just regular guys. We want to watch the football game, but we're preoccupied because there are not enough sandwiches."
"I know the difference between eggshell and ecru," he attests. "And I leave candles burning in my home - even when I'm not trying to be romantic."
"I think we're like a byproduct of the women's movement of the '80s. Women thought they wanted men with sensitive sides. But our feminine sides are over-developed."
There is a point in his show where Stroili brings male audience members up on stage for a pop quiz to see whether, they too, might be renaissance geeks.
"The questions are things I'm aware of," notes Stroili. "For example, 'What NFL colors could best be described as seafoam and cantaloupe?' Or, 'If you go out to dinner with a woman who orders a salad with thousand island dressing, is there a future in the relationship?'"
"The answer is, it's a trick question," says Stroili. "There's no way you'd be caught dead in a restaurant serving thousand island dressing.
Stroili says the impetus for "Straight Up's" creation goes back to 1999 and can be traced to the very first line in the play.
"My wife said, 'I'm so lucky to have found you. You're like this gay friend I can have sex with,'" says Stroili. "She meant it as a compliment, but it's not something I was comfortable with."
"So I thought it was a great idea for this mock movement - guys cursed with this ability," he adds. "One reason I think it's been so successful is it's been a bridge over the gap between gay and straight communities."
From the beginning, Stroili knew he wanted to develop the piece as a one person show, with examples of what makes him a renaissance geek and how his family members felt about that. And initially, he says, the piece was very much like a stand-up routine.
Then a friend suggested that since Stroili is good at character impersonations, instead of talking about the other people in his life, he should actually become them.
"So I scrapped the whole first draft and now it's so much more than stand-up - it's like a full out play," he says. "The nicest thing that has been said about the show is that you forget it's a one person performance because of the difference between the characters."
In early 2000, the show premiered at a theater in Culver City that was managed by Stroili's friend, and it ran Mondays through Wednesdays on the nights the theater's main production was dark.
"It was phenomenal," says Stroili. "It ended up eclipsing the main show."
The play, which was then called "Renaissance Geek," was nominated as a best solo show of 2000 by L.A. Weekly. And while it didn't win the big prize, it did put Stroili on the map. A second run at a larger theater followed in 2001, and then the show hit the road, literally, and has since played around the country.
Stroili wrote "Straight Up" years before the debut of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," the TV show in which five gay men remake a slob of a heterosexual. And even though the focus is completely different, he feels the success of that show has brought a good deal of attention to his own - though he derides the fact that the straight men in the program are portrayed as knuckle dragging Neanderthals.
Stroili has apparently hit a nerve with this show, and it would seem there are enough renaissance geeks out there to garner quite a following. Women everywhere are bringing their mates to the show to prove to them that they are not alone.
"So many of the men coming to the show were leaving with black and blue arms from their wives punching them and saying, 'It's you,'" says Stroili.
And if you think that channels like Home & Garden are contributing to the increase in Renaissance geekdom, you may be right.
"It's already happening," says Stroili. "If you look at Home Depot Design Centers, you'll find heterosexual men being asked to publicly make color and fabric choices - and they do. But the show also has to do with knocking down the labels - poking fun at just that sort of thing."
"Gay vs. straight is just part of it," he notes. "It also has to do with family and kids. My father is an old world Italian, my mother a tough German immigrant. In the course of the evening I play a game show host, a college professor, my mother, my father and my sister."
The show is also flexible, and Stroili tweaks it at will, working in current topical references as they happen and cutting things when they just don't work anymore.
There's an element of the show where I talk about someone being addicted to something," says Stroili. "I just plug the most recent Hollywood persona into it."
Perhaps Stroili's biggest surprise in all of this is the warm reception the show has received all across the country - even in the conservative heartland.
"I knew it would hit a nerve in L.A., there are so many actors and other guys who fall into the category," says Stroili. "But I didn't expect it to hit nationally and in rural areas. In those areas, people embrace the family relationships I portray in the show and it's a wonderful feeling to have an 18 year old kid and 80 year old woman doubled over at the same joke."
And how does Stroili's family feel about being portrayed on stage for all the world to see?
"They love it. It's so exaggerated, so they know it's all in good fun," he says. "But I do a scathing portrayal of my mother - she's a sailor mouthed Bronx broad. She came up to me after she saw the play and the only thing she could think to say was, 'I don't smoke that much.'"
Tickets to Paul Stroili's "Straight Up With A Twist" are $50. Call Group for the South Fork at 537-1400 to reserve.
