L.A. comedian serves up 'Life with a Twist'
'Paul Stroili's Straight Up With a Twist'

Jim Edwards/Theater critic

Paul Stroili is a very funny man. He is sort of like a dysfunctional Greek chorus who plays out the tragedy of one man's family. Stroili brings his unique style of humor to Naperville's Crossroads Theater after a three-month engagement in Chicago. This one-man show started out in 1999 titled as Straight Up in California and has since played to audiences from coast to coast.

Stroili manages to play the principal people in his life as he grew up, such as his mother (who narrates for the most part), his brother, and shrink, to name a few. He makes the case that there is another species out there trapped in a world dominated by mainstream males, females, homosexuals and lesbians - metrosexuals. Stroili chooses to further define such males as Renaissance Geeks - men who march to a different drummer and can tell the difference between ecru and eggshell but are still straight!

Stroili, in his search for identity and acceptance in what he regards as an unfriendly and unaccepting world, resembles Starkist tuna's frustrated Charlie the Tuna, who has good tastes, but not the kind that makes it into the tuna can.

As Stroili works his magic, tracing his life from birth to marriage, we are treated to a host of characters that are in a sense more interesting and funny than Paul, the subject of the play. From a foul-mouthed, smoking hip mother to a compulsive shrink who makes the character Monk on television seem normal, Stroili keeps his audience laughing and feeling personally in touch with every character portrayed.

The audience opening night was most responsive to the scene where two males in the audience were invited up on stage to play a quiz show game for geeks called It's All Geek To Me. Stroili spins a wheel which has five spots on it called — sports, fashion, home and garden, food and fine dining, and potpourri. Questions usually appear normal but the correct answers invariably only geeks could handle. For example, a sports question was "What are the correct side dishes to take to a tailgate party?" Another question centers on the correct description of NFL teams' logo colors. Throughout the show Stroili illustrates time and time again that he is one of many men out there who is aware of the "wrong" things in life.

Stroili is a master of self realization. His audiences can sense both the high points and low points of his life all wrapped up in a delightful humorous spiel.

Stroili's Renaissance Man or Metrosexual is not an endangered species anymore. Movies with geeks as heroes are box office hits. Bill Gates rules the world, as Woody Allen does with his New York World, and Paul Stroili's one-man show plays to packed houses. Not only do geeks rule, they are super entertainers!

Don't miss out on this one-man show. Celebrate diversity and laugh your pants off!