Super Heroes, Super Sex

A double bill of sex and hilarity, "The Adventures of Captain Neato-Man" and "Sex Lives of Superheroes" came to the Loeb Ex this past weekend. The similar themes and overlapping casts were channeled differently in each play, so while "Captain Neato-Man" depended on its witty dialogue and interactions between the cast for laughs, "Sex Lives of Superheroes" derived its humor from its monologues and its situational premise.

In "The Adventures of Captain Neato-Man," the superstraight young Larry (Nick Parillo) comes to an apartment in response to a secretarial ad. Timidly entering the open door, he soon finds himself cornered on the couch by a lusty woman in a leopard-print dressing gown (Jessie Conrad), who accuses him huskily of breaking in and trying to take advantage of her. Just then a curly-haired apparition in full superhero gear bursts in.

"Mom! What are you doing!"

"Oh my," murmurs his mother, retracting her leg. "I thought we were playing 'The Old Lady and the Intruder.'"

"But that's our game!"

As it turns out, Capt'n Neato-Man ("All the good superhero names were taken") put the ad in the paper to find his sidekick, Horatio. "We put it in the secretarial section to throw off the commies," he confides. His mother is on the lookout for something else altogether, but Larry resists both of them; he's looking for a real job, having been fired from McDonald's ("The epitome of the American Dream!" breathe the Captain and his mother), and he's waiting for his true love to come along.

As Larry, Nick Parillo projects his image as Normal Guy in a Bin of Loonies a little too hard. Long after the audience has gotten used to the weirdness of this family, he's still in buggy-eyed disbelief. But the discovery that his long-sought love, Trixy (Erica Mitnick), is an ex-ho and "born-again virgin," is a challenge that expands his character's previously one-note personality. Jessie Conrad is excellent as the sultry mother, and just the bantering (it doesn't just stop there) that goes on between her and her son deserves an "R" rating.

Adam Green is the split-personality Capt'n Neato-Man, who switches personae from mama's boy to bully to sexy, self-assured superhero in the three-way tug-of-war over "Horatio." At the heart of the story is the question, "Will Larry agree to give up his identity and become 'Horatio'?" Towards the end, the script dips into banality, pitting Larry against the Cap'n in the worn-out opposition between the "Get a real life" and "Live your dream" schools of thought. Overall, however, great lines ("You can't have sex without love!" "What are you, kidding? It's an American tradition!") and the chance to snag a few Butterfingers during the all-out candy fight make it all worthwhile, as Capt'n Neato-Man and his mother pull out all the stops to convert Larry into "Horatio."

"Sex Lives of Superheroes" is an unusual romantic comedy that chronicles a blind date set up by a psychiatrist between two of his patients. Standing alone in his living room, in his guy-at-home uniform of worn jeans, flannel shirt and socked feet, Michael (David Egan) likes to imagine himself lecturing at Carnegie Hall on the sex lives of superheroes. Eleanor (Abigail Gray) likes to rewrite love stories into tragedies--"Or, if they're already tragic but in a really noble way, I rewrite 'em so they're squalid and bitter." What's keeping this perfect pair apart? Only Michael's obsession with his heartless ex-girlfriend, Lisa (Erica Mitnick), who haunts his Carnegie Hall fantasies, asking steamy questions like, "Who was the first comic book character to have interdimensional sex?" In real life, she's been paying him weekly visits to reclaim possessions ever since they broke up. She took back all of her own stuff long ago, so she's moved on to his, which Michael happily yields to her so that she'll continue to come back. Erica Mitnick is wonderfully bitchy and shamelessly seductive as Lisa, and Gray and Egan are thoroughly lovable in their deviant behaviors.

"Sex Lives of Superheroes" drops some very educational tidbits about the intimate lives of the Superpowerful Ones, investigates the habits of the psychologically disturbed and gives us a devilish retelling of that noble, classic love story, "The Gift of the Magi." You could even argue that this is a learning experience, a combination of sex and information that could even rival the notorious stacks of Widener.