DeLuca snugly fits role in poignant ‘Bible Belt’
by Chuck Graham on Jan. 17, 2008, under Calendar
Ryan DeLuca is Johnny in "The Bible Belt … and other accessories."
There is a sweetness and innocence in Ryan DeLuca’s performance that gives the poignant parts a tug of courageous heartbreak. He just seems so defiantly optimistic. The feeling must be similar to what makes married women cry at weddings – they know the pain that lies ahead for the glowing young bride.
Such is the bittersweet joy in Arizona Onstage’s production of “The Bible Belt . . . and other accessories” by Paul Bonin-Rodriguez. His play consists of three monologues, each one a separate but related scene. DeLuca is a college freshman at the University of Arizona, playing a small town Texas high school senior.
DeLuca does it with a soft twang and natural talent that makes his story feel completely genuine. His character is Johnny Roy Hobson, growing up without a father and feeling responsible for his mother.
Johnny’s story began in last season’s Arizona Onstage presentation of “Talk of the Town” by Bonin-Rodriguez. In that show Johnny is a few years younger, far enough along in adolescence to realize something isn’t working out.
All the boys Johnny had as friends in grade school have started to get interested in girls. It’s a feeling Johnny doesn’t seem to have. He keeps waiting, thinking, then desperately hoping – but nothing. Girls are nice to talk to and all. They are fun. But that special excitement the other boys get about girls just isn’t there for Johnny.
He’s more than a little dismayed when his good friends from grade school stop coming around. Johnny is even more surprised to find himself getting a strong feeling toward a boy down at the Dairy Queen where he works after school. “Talk of the Town” ends with Johnny taking action on that strong feeling.
Some of this back story is provided in “Bible Belt.” You don’t need to have seen that show to understand this one. At the DQ in “Talk of the Town” Johnny also had a love-at-first-sight experience when a strikingly handsome young man in a bright red convertible pulled up in the drive-through.
There are a few references to him in “Bible Belt,” but the two never meet. Apparently Johnny’s obsession with this top-down object of desire will continue for awhile. Bonin-Rodriguez has written five plays around Johnny Roy Hobson. In the fifth and final episode, Johnny is 45 years old, coming back home to visit. It seems like a pretty good bet somewhere in there this mysterious stranger will reappear.
So for now Johnny is in his senior year of high school. Occasionally some of the other boys holler, “Hey DQ – dairy queer.” Johnny tries to ignore these moments, put them out of his mind. He’s resigned to his innermost feelings and, with the generosity of youth, is determined to make the best of the life he’s been given.
His favorite teachers still like him. And the girls still like him, a fact that does seem to bother the boys.
As directed by Kevin Johnson, DeLuca doesn’t give Johnny any effeminate mannerisms. The boy is especially sensitive to the feelings of others, but he doesn’t gesture with limp wrists or talk using silly expressions. There is no mincing in this boy.
He signs up for high school home economics class because he’s required to take at least one course teaching “practical skills.” He isn’t about to take shop class, not with all those power tools and so many other boys who hate him now.
That’s when Johnny discovers he has a talent for fashion design. Then in a different monologue he applies this sense of style awareness to making a bible belt, literally, out of the little New Testament Bibles a few of the other students start passing out after school one day.
In no time at all the local TV station is down there getting pictures.
Grade: A
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IF YOU GO
What: Arizona Onstage Productions presents “The Bible Belt . . . and other accessories” by Paul Bonin-Rodriguez
When: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: ZIUZI!Theater, 738 N. Fifth Ave.
Price: $15 general admission, discount for groups
Info: 882-6574, www.arizonaonstage.org
