All in the Family HALF ASSIDUITY ARTS MAKES ITS DEBUT

Though Alex Hurt and Raul S. Julia met in a nursery on the set of their fathers’ movie Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1984, the encounter nonetheless marked the start of a lasting friendship that’s now produced a theater company, Half Assiduity Arts, and a limited-run staging of The Gay Barber’s Apartment, in which they star, at Manhattan’s Sanford Meisner Theater. The two men follow in their fathers’ considerable and serious-minded thespian footsteps—but with exceptions: Hurt’s previous play I’ve Been Drunk for Three Weeks and I Have a Gun and Julia’s bawdy portrayal of Picasso, in The “Ladies" of Avignon, confirm that there’s more to Off Off Broadway than uncomfortable seats and social issues. The new production is a coming-of-age story of New York high-schoolers at the turn of the century. “Lots of sex and no kissing,” says writer Larry Traiger somewhat philosophically. “Girls and booze are very important to the characters,” explains Julia. “But they know the bubble they live in is about to burst.” Impending adulthood is held at bay with help from their friend the barber and his supplies of cocaine. “It’s also about nostalgia,” adds Hurt, who also directed. “It’s got a lot of references to transcendental philosophy, Henry Miller, and a lot of Salinger... falling babies and that type of thing.” -EDWARD HELMORE

EDWARD HELMORE

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