Permanently on edge

How to categorize the uniquely ingenious work of Michael Kinnan? 

On the day I was set to attend Goodbye Horses, a non-theater friend asked me to describe the show. To my shame, I tidily characterized Kinnan’s latest solo piece, subtitled An Unauthorized Retelling of Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, as a “one-man parody” of Demme’s acclaimed 1991 film. 

Of course, “parody” was not a sufficient descriptor. I knew that full well because I had seen Kinnan’s breakout work Never Let Go, a delightful riff on Titanic presented in 2021 at The Brick (where Goodbye Horses also debuted this July, ahead of an August run at Edinburgh Fringe). Never Let Go was many things, none of them parody: it was faithful reenactment, loving homage and playful satire—somehow all at once.

In reviewing Never Let Go at the time, I noted my relief that Kinnan was driven by genuine “love and fascination” with James Cameron’s epic 1997 l, rather than contempt. As I wrote then: “Why reenact except out of love?” 

Kinnan has pulled off an equally remarkable trick with Goodbye Horses—albeit in a very different tonal register. Where Never Let Go operated firmly within the realm of camp melodrama, Goodbye Horses is a work of intense psychological horror through and through. 

For me, that required some adjustment. As Kinnan guides us through the opening scenes of Demme’s iconic film, introducing us to FBI trainee Clarice Starling and her misogynist male co-workers, I felt an inevitable desire to giggle and titter. Kinnan’s take on Clarice only adds to the confusion, leaning as it does into a high-pitched voice and babe-in-the-woods energy that feels overly arch. 

But as soon as Dr. Lecter himself enters, Horses finds its footing. Kinnan’s embodiment of Hannibal is simply delicious, as delectably evil as it is disgustingly horny. The strange intimacy and mutual understanding Lecter finds with Clarice, so key to the success of the film, is equally evident in Kinnan’s work—highly impressive when one man is playing both parts. 

As we descend deeper into Clarice and Lecter’s psyches, this moody staging, co-directed by Kinnan and Tom DeTrinis, begins to cast its unsettling spell. Nicole Bernardini’s barebones staging provides all it needs to, and Rosana Cabán’s soundscape is suitably unnerving. But the biggest assist comes from lighting designer Kate McGee, whose work with darkness and shadow keeps us permanently on edge.

The trickiest challenge facing Kinnan was how to tackle “Buffalo Bill,” the serial killer Sterling and Lecter are hunting. Bill identifies in the film as a transsexual and skins female victims for the purpose of making a “woman suit,” to complete a kind-of “transformation.” Lecter insists that Bill is not transsexual, simply deluded—though he’s hardly a man you’d look to for sensitive insight on gender theory. 

Kinnan offers no sympathy to the brutish Bill. The killer is a terrifying presence who seems to live in the darkness, evading McGee’s every attempt to illuminate him. Yet when Bill dances to Q Lazzarus’ song “Goodbye Horses” (an infamous scene from Demme’s film), something intriguing happens. A disco ball fills the space with glittering splendor. Kinnan glides around the space, bathrobe flowing behind him. There is an undeniable beauty to the moment. It is also, at the same time, grotesque and unsettling. Kinnan lets all these messy contradictions sit side by side, Bill’s confused relationship to gender mixed in alongside so much else.

Goodbye Horses builds to a gloriously terrifying coup de théâtre, a shocker for a moment that had my audience gasping (then applauding). The ingenuity of this moment, alongside many other striking images conjured along the way, confirm Kinnan as a thrillingly imaginative theatrical magician. What this artist does can’t quite be defined, and in that ineffability lives its beauty.