BY SCOTT STIFFLER | Well-rounded vigilantes don costumes, embrace their true identities, and risk their lives patrolling the mean streets of a square city unable to embrace their unconventional lifestyle — while twisted villains lurk in the shadows, hiding behind masks.
Alex Gray as All American Girl (left) and Charles Battersby as The Scarlet Skunk. Their astonishing adventure unfolds at The Brick’s Comic Book Festival.
That’s just one of the thrilling, action-packed aspects of this sassy, daffy, heartfelt, spandex-filled parable about self-acceptance. Part of The Brick Theater’s annual Comic Book Festival, both of the title characters from “The Astonishing Adventures of All American Girl & The Scarlet Skunk” do their crime fighting in heels — but look closer, intrepid viewer, and you’ll see that one of them has an Adam’s apple!
Tale of costumed vigilantes has sass, spandex, substance
THEATER | THE ASTONISHING ADVENTURES OF ALL AMERICAN GIRL & THE SCARLET SKUNK
Written & Directed by Charles Battersby
Wednesday, June 25 at 9 p.m.
At The Brick
579 Metropolitan Ave., Brooklyn
Subway: Take the L to Lorimer
or the G to Metropolitan
Tickets: $18
To order, visit bricktheater.com
Call 212-352-3101
For artist info: charlesbattersby.com
Visit pressxy.com (co-founded by Battersby, devoted to exploring transgender issues in gaming)
Playwright and director Charles Battersby plays the non-lethal gas-spraying Scarlet Skunk — whose uneasy alliance with a Jiu Jitsu-savvy, World War II vet-turned-underappreciated-secretary-turned-nocturnal-hero (aka All American Girl) might just blossom into an epic romance.
Golden Age comics, post-war gender roles, serial cliffhangers, women’s rights, “moral panic,” and transgender issues all get worked over like the henchmen who lob hurtful words and deeds in the direction of our fisticuff-friendly, titular couple.
“You Freudian types can’t stand anything that you can’t classify,” says The Scarlet Skunk, while confronting an unenlightened adversary. It’s a super observation made powerful because it flows from the glossy red lips of a man who champions the right to present himself as a woman.
