IN SEARCH OF CRUISE CONTROL by James Gangl (Gangland Productions). At the John Candy Box Theatre (99 Blue Jays Way). Runs to March 26. $12-$15. 416-343-0011. See listings. Rating: NNN
When James Gangl was asked by his sister-in-law to explain the birds and the bees to his 14-year-old nephew, it opened up a Pandoras Box full of issues for the veteran comic.
As he recounts in his funny and surprisingly poignant solo show, Gangl himself had a difficult entree into sex education, mostly involving his stern mother a) discovering him with his older brothers porn and b) walking in on him while he was watching the single, brief sex scene in The Terminator.
Jumping around in time kind of like the Terminator himself to get to the origin of his sexual problems, Gangl revisits some of his formative experiences, such as a virginity pledge he takes while performing in a high school musical, and a series of dates with a hot (but racist) South African woman while hes performing on a luxury cruise ship. The latter material gives the show its odd and misleading title. (Oddly enough, this could have been called Sex, Religion & Other Hang-Ups, after his debut show.)
But theres one revelation he leaves until later, one that shifts the tone of the show and remains disappointingly underexplored by either Gangl or his director, Chris Gibbs.
Gangl is a fine improviser, and his off-the-cuff asides to the audience whether hes responding to a line flub or a nervous titter from an audience member seem more authentic and present than his delivery of the story proper.
Im also not sure hes helped by the circuitous nature of the script, which besides repeated tours to that Terminator scene also quotes readily from the film Boyz N The Hood. Apart from being movies that Gangl had presumably seen, these sequences lack context or connection to his life.
Still, Gangl is a likeable, smart artist who has an immediate connection to the crowd. He’s got the material. If he dug deeper, found more truth and shaped it the way Mike Birbiglia does in his own autobiographical shows, he could one day create something deeply moving and funny.
