Honeybuns
Written and Performed by Dean Evans
Flat Iron Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee (map)
thru Oct 28 | tickets: $25 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
Read entire review
A strange sticky taste in your mouth
Collaboraction presents
Honeybuns
Review by K.D. Hopkins
This is my second time seeing Honeybuns, and performer Dean Evans still manages to shock, provoke and make me laugh – in shame – but nonetheless I laugh. Evan’s acerbic and sometimes caustic wit is made for the anthropomorphic character he has created.
Honeybuns is not quite human but says all of the things that a person would say without filters. He is not a clown in the traditional sense who has a vulnerability and humanity behind the greasepaint. Evans’ character is in your face. It dares you to do nasty things that you keep secret in the back of your mind.
Evans affects an English accent for the character, and it does add a certain haughtiness to the mix. I grew up on “Monty Python” and “Benny Hill” when it seemed unfathomable that a country with a queen with an ever present purse could have subjects so hysterically rude. The effect is the same with Honeybuns. It is astonishing to hear some of the one-liners delivered with an “I gotcha” face under a pointy yellow banana head and said with that posh accent.
Honeybuns is also a show about self love and acceptance, which Evans demonstrates with a march down Milwaukee Ave. at the end of the show. He stands on a soapbox and preaches to the crowd about speaking one’s truth and sticking to convictions. He encourages the audience members and passersby to get up on the box and tell the world their truth in that moment. I enjoyed watching the reactions from cabbies, cyclists, and hipsters. They stopped in wonder. They took pictures with their smart phones. The gawking proves Honeybuns‘ point of no matter what you say or how you say it, the point is to get it out there. Of course, with the scene being on Wicker Park’s busiest corner, the local crackhead made her way through. She and another street local got into a melee with him exposing her as a con who was not really hungry. (It could have been part of the act.) By this time Honeybuns had slipped away without notice in that blazing yellow outfit. Without notice is the key here. All the world is a stage and everyone is a player (with apologies to Shakespeare). This show will leave a strange sticky taste of surreal in your mouth. That’s not always a bad thing.
Rating: ★★½
Honeybuns continues through Date at Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee, Studio 300 (map). Tickets are $25, and are available here. Please be aware that strobe lights are used in this production and that the themes are mature; we recommend this show for those 18 and older. More info at Collaboraction.org (Running time: 70 minutes, no intermission)
artists
cast
Dean Evans (writer, director, and Honeybuns)
behind the scenes
Sarah Moeller (producer), Elaine Wesolowski (stage manager), Shawn Casey (asst. stage manager), John Wilson (set design, technical director), Jeremy Getz (lighting design), Stephen Ptacek (sound design); Ania Sodziak (photos)
12-1025
