Cameron Raasdal-Munro gives himself and the audience a workout in his semi-autobiographical play, Gangsta Baby , before the show even begins. As the audience files into the tiny Open Space Arts venue, Raasdal-Munro is shadow boxing and doing push-ups. The exercising is a hint of the exorcising that takes place in the play, based on his experiences growing up queer in the coastal city of Hastings in the UK with a mobster father. That father, called Senior in the play, was also primarily attracted to men—a source of genuine comfort and joy to him, alongside the shame and loss he endured at the hands of his father.

Adroitly directed by Rikki Beadle-Blair, this U.S. premiere gives us no place to look away as the harsh violence enacted by Josh Odor’s Senior takes its toll on Raasdal-Mu

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