'Secret Things' offers provocative look at life

Words from Richard Perez' uncles that haunted him since he was a boy encapsulate the concerns of his original autobiographical one-man show, "Secret Things." \n"Richard, you're the man of the house now. You gotta take care of your mother." \nIn less than an hour, Perez brings more life to the stage than most shows can find in an excess of two. He traces his earliest memories of shopping at Swan's with his grandmother up through his early days as an actor in New York, never blinking at the pain, laughter, disillusionment and hope he experienced in a life that forced him to grow up much too quickly.\nPerez begins his show by dismantling the fourth wall -- in the dark, the audience hears Perez giving voice to the negative thoughts inside his head: "Do people really want to see another one-man show? What if I forget my lines?" \nHe immediately reminds himself he wrote the show. The lights come up, and Perez sits with the audience and tells them about himself.\n"If you asked me why I'm not married," he said, "I guess I would I say it's because I haven't met the right woman. In your 20s, in your 30s, that's a cool thing to say. But at my age people wonder if you're gay. I'm not gay ... although I do love to decorate."\nPerez' honesty about himself makes "Secret Things" one of the most refreshing shows to hit Bloomington this season. Director Patricia McKee orchestrates Perez around a set cluttered with fishing poles, furniture, clothes, toys and heaps of other objects. It is his storehouse of memories, where in a few seconds he can gather a memory of heartache, put it down and then pick up another memory that fills the house with laughter.\nThese memories include sitting with his grandfather on a second-story stoop.\nPerez remembers watching a neighbor's home burn down; his undersized father fighting to get through life; standing helpless on a river bank as divers searched for his father; dealing with bullies, both the school variety and his mom's boyfriend, a marine possessed by a warped sense of masculinity who sold used cars and "smoked like a girl." He also remembers the horrors of being overweight in high school gym, extreme dieting to lose weight and make himself attractive and the restorative power he found in theater.\nPerez glides out of the present and into his youth with grace and precision. He crawls on the floor and plays with dinosaurs, He seduces women in the audience by singing Tom Jones, he shadowboxes ferociously with his demons. \nHis movements in and out of stories are supported by lighting designer Mike Price, who understands how to make a visual impact with a less-is-more approach. He knows better than to distract from the emotional core of a performance. As Perez stands in a driver's seat trying to hold a huge steering wheel, Price keeps the focus toward the top of Perez, achieving the look of a small boy trying keep his head up in an adult world.\nThe show is a triumph for Perez, who is every bit as skilled as his training suggests: apprentice at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, an MFA from Arizona State University, training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and with Uta Hagen at the Herbert Berghoff Studios. His self-portrait is easily one of the most engaging and cathartic shows Bloomington has seen in some time.