←Recommendations of The Interrobangers

I saw The Interrobangers in Boston back in January this year. When I saw this I immediately was amazed at how M Sloth Levine was able to take a classic childhood cartoon like SCOOBY DOO, and turn it into something truly special, funny, and and super duper queer play! I love how this play explores the sexuality and the relationships of the characters as they all try and solve a mystery in their small town! It is absolutely genius the way M was able to write this play! Bravo M!

The things I love about this play are the characters, the genre and structure, and how queer it is. The main characters, including the dog Hoover, are specific and very human. Their earnest reckoning with identity and trauma is both compelling and makes me empathize with them. The use of SCOOBY DOO as a structural touchstone is genius and helps make the content more accessible to both queer audiences and the cis-hets. I especially love that this play centers young queer people as whole, complicated humans. I'd describe this play as fun and ruthlessly contemporary.

Jinkies! I loved this play. It's a queer riff on Scooby Doo that offers an inspiring take on the gang's origin story, steeped in cryptid lore with references to “The X-Files” and “Unsolved Mysteries.” There are exciting design challenges, including two tall puppets. The place names are really smart (Norville College, Roswell’s, The Jackalope), and the play combines camp humor with serious exploration of grief, trauma, anxiety, gender identity, and sexuality. The dramatic structure is clearly informed by the cartoon series, while ultimately breaking out of that formula to embrace the nuance and ambivalence of the interrobang symbol.

This is a gorgeous coming-of-age romp about cryptids and the people (and fellow cryptids) who love them. The puppets are delightful, the nostalgia is engaging, and the rituals are intricate in this tale of growing up, embracing queerness, and processing trauma and the fallibility of memory. I loved the authenticity of the central friend group, and watching them evolve over the course of the play was a treat. It's campy, funny, heartbreaking, scary, and mysterious, all in two tight hours of larger-than-life, strikingly intimate theatre.

I really enjoyed the ambitious exploration in this story that focuses on the complexities of what it means to be older, but still not adult. Really interesting visual elements that I’d love to see staged. I found myself remarkably invested in the characters after less than 100 pages.

Those last few lines gave me a chill. I love this concept-using Scooby Doo tropes to tell a story of a group of teens coming to terms with trauma and their own queerness. I loved Luna's monologue at the end. I'm rooting for these kids. I'm especially rooting for Hoover.

I don't know what took me so long to read this play but wow wow wow is it good. It's terrifying and heartbreaking and major mystery both literally and existentially. A wonderful ensemble piece where every actor gets a moment to shine. If anyone decides to give the Riverdale treatment to Scooby-Doo, they better hire M. Sloth Levine!!

My laughter turned into tears during this incredibly fast paced and creepy spin on nostalgic Scooby Doo tropes. This play is filled with tender friendship, queer love, explorations of trauma and an ambiguity of memory that leave you wishing you could go beyond the last words of the script. For lack of a better pun, this play is a banger.

This play is poignant, funny as hell, and so relatable to the young queer experience. As a bisexual woman, I was elated at the conversations around queerness that felt like the same ones I had just a few years ago in college. I also loved this sense of mystery, of not knowing what is real, and that maybe we can create our own reality. Love love love this play. If you want to know more, tune into Play-Mates podcast, where I'm analyzing this play on April 9, 2021 :)

The Interrobangers is a play that screams out for production. Deft, tender, brilliant, and with a runaway theatrical imagination which sparkles with the play's every breath. The kind of piece you pine for long after finishing it.