'7 Blowjobs' Creates A Cartoonish Atmosphere Of Fun. By Margaret Regan ON THE VERY weekend that Republican presidential hopefuls swarmed through town, each trying to prove himself more conservative than the next, the small Coyote Ramblers Theater Group opened a scathing political comedy denouncing right-wingers of all stripes. More raging cartoon than thoughtful theater, this one-note play never minces words. Its title, for instance, 7 Blowjobs, is just the start of an evening full of outrageous ribaldry and salty language. The blow jobs in question are, or maybe aren't, depicted in a set of seven photographs delivered anonymously to the office of the loathsome Senator Bob, a dyed-in-the-wool Southern hypocrite who masterfully manipulates his Christian constituency. Manically played by Eugene Montes in an over-the-top performance, Senator Bob has made it his goal in politics to uncover "faggotry" wherever it lurks. ("Here's to war against international faggotry!" he thunders in one particularly loony scene. "George Bush? A faggot. Ronald Reagan? A faggot. Alphonse D'Amato? Faggot!" and on and on back to George Washington.) So the arrival of the photographs, which the audience never sees, sets his cowed staff a-twitter: Could those, gasp, be Senator Bob's private parts in the pictures? Is there a smear afoot? Or do the pictures maybe have something to do with all that dreadful pornography sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts? That's about it as far as plot goes in this short two-acter directed by Ken Tesoriere. The prize-winning playwright, Mac Wellman, a New Yorker who's authored some 40 plays, uses this thin sketch to target just about every creepy Republican stereotype there is. Charles Prokopp does a profoundly sleazy turn as a corrupt minister who gets off on all the sexual sins he routinely denounces from his profitable pulpit. Predictably, the senator's more-right-wing-than-thou staff gets a sexual charge out of looking at the naughty photos. Administrative assistant Eileen, a silver-spoon Republican who honed her conservative credentials at the notoriously right-wing Dartmouth Review student newspaper, is played in suitably cardboard fashion by Elizabeth Starrett as one of those unfathomable Republican women in trim suit and big hair. Yolanda Hovey does a good job as the earnest receptionist, the only one in the bunch who truly believes in the conservative Christian cause. But Aaron Brown's low-key performance as the legislative assistant who came up the hard way at working-class Bob Jones University just doesn't stand up against the full-throttle parodies turned in by the other four players. Put on by one of the few remaining alternative theatre companies in town, this 1991 play is the kind of work that speaks only to the already converted. Pat Buchanan supporters need not attend. According to press materials, playwright Wellman was denounced in the early '90s by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) just as the senator embarked on his largely successful assault on the NEA. 7 Blowjobs, with its thinly disguised caricature of the homophobic senator, was Wellman's response. The play has some major flaws--the scene in which the staff looks lasciviously at the photos goes on way too long, a bizarre subplot about surveillance is just plain confusing, it does little to advance our understanding of the Christian Coalition's might--but as a comic screed it has all the sweetness of unbridled revenge. 7 Blowjobs continues through Sunday, March 10, at the old aka Theatre, 125 E. Congress St. Performances are at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 6 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $10, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Shanti Foundation. For reservations and information call 797-7779.

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