by Tracey Paleo, Gia On The Move

Not particularly dirty but most definitely messy.

For a basically good-hearted kid confused by a regular assault about growing up to be a “sissy”, life with Father can be rough.

So when after years of being  incommunicado with a man who betrays his Mother via an affair with another woman and divorce, all but totally disappears from his life and offers hardly a moment of  outward respect, support or encouragement, how possible is forgiveness?

When Les Kurkendaal shows up with his boyfriend for a quiet Christmas holiday at his mom’s house in Texas he gets a shocking surprise — a cheating, homosexual hating, elusive father who is anxious to be back in everyone’s life.  And boy how things have changed!

Dirty Messy Love, playing at the Elephant Studio at Theatre Asylum, is a straightforward, honest, empathetic account of Les Kurkendaal’s rabbit hole encounter with his father anxious to re-unite.  A very un-saccharin storyteller, Kurkendaal, is right out front with his feelings about his childhood and his parental relationships which certainly take an unbelievable turn, revealing truths he didn’t know and exposing little white lies that suited everyone but himself.  It is a moving and sweet story about Love in the most roundabout way, that begins as a great bit WTF (for him) but ultimately turns out ok.

Dirty Messy Love is an even-tempered, soft-landing show which through the telling, Kurkendaal is able to excoriate and mend his own heart for a better future — for everyone’s sake.