The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: My Beatnik Youth: A Solo Riff

By Dennis W.

My Beatnik Youth: A Solo Riff, now playing at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club down in the East Village of NYC, sounds like a further trip down memory lane of what many people think of as those quiet years between World War II and the sexual revolution of the sixties. But this beatnik-like reading is anything but nostalgic or ordinary or quiet. It’s a well-framed warning, that lives in the stream of consciousness as we all go down the road like the “Wild Ones.”

17-year-old Jay played by Justin Elizabeth Sayre, who uses the pronouns ‘they/them’, looks straight at us and unapologetically tells their coming-of-age story from the stark realities of a psychiatric ward.  There is no time for a setup, Jay just rushes at us in a stream of conscious outpouring of every thought, emotion, and vision about their life while positioning themselves steadfast at a music stand, sliding their scribbled pages off one after another after another, leaving them to cascade to the floor like all the experiences that were had. Born decades too late for the Beat Generation, Jay sees themself as one of Jack Kerouac’s “Wild Ones” which has helped land them in their current dark situation. Jay has worked hard at appearing to be the ‘good boy’, figuring out all the angles and playing them as well as possible, but booze, drugs, and fast cars brought them right back into trouble. This stint under lock and key is all about getting out of trouble after a reckless car accident plus some drug charges. They come face to face with mental illness, sexuality, and suicide, all wrapped up in a bow of shoelaces that they are looking forward to getting back.

My Beatnik Youth: A Solo Riff, written and performed by Sayre, references the Beat Generation style of readings: emotional and emotionless all at the same time. Written in the first person singular, a mature Sayre with a full beard and felt hat is that 17-year-old Jay “on the road” trying to forge a path to a better understanding of what they did and where they need to go from here. Direction by Fempath (Zoo Venues, Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s Jet of Blood) is minimal, as Sayre mostly stands at the microphone bathed in the dramatic lighting design by Evan Spigelman. It punctuates well his journey with the help of musical direction by Tracy Stark which adds texture and tempo to the fascinatingly adept production.

Jay’s examination of their mental health ends after a month-long isolation with their fellow patients, their thoughts, and their copy of “On The Road” as they continue to look down that same road to see where it might eventually take them.

Each performance of My Beatnik Youth is preceded by a lobby poetry reading. The night I attended, non-binary poet, producer, and performance artist Candystore (Artist-in-Residence 2018-19; Shandaken: Governor’s Island) read mostly from their collection of  “Cray Cray OO LA LA” series, a collection of poems titled after the color names of Crayola Crayons. Candystore examines the queer ethos in our culture in a reading style that is breezy and approachable belying the seriousness of their work and what lay ahead, down that complicated Sayre road.