Los Angeles Loyolan

Issue date: 4/24/08 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Courtesy of the Powerhouse Theater Hal Ackerman and Randy Oglesby star in this semi-biographical play.

The seats were filled Friday night at Santa Monica's small Powerhouse Theatre. In the appropriately intimate setting, Hal Ackerman, noted UCLA professor, took the stage to address his audience, at the beginning of "Testosterone: How Cancer Made a Man of Me." "The prostate. It's like Bulgaria-nobody knows what goes on there," he jokes. But they were about to find out.

The play focuses on Hal's experiences as a man choosing to live a year without testosterone after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He searches desperately for treatment plans and decides on an option called hormone blockade, which chemically stops his body from producing the hormone that has defined his manhood. The change makes him almost like a woman during menopause. That being said, the revealing and inspiring two-hour performance raises the questions: What defines masculinity and what it is like to face one's mortality?

Ackerman is joined onstage by Randy Oglesby and Lisa Robins, who play several characters from Hal's life, ranging from a doctor who resembles Frankenstein's Eyegore, to Hal's rebellious daughter and business-minded girlfriend. The audience travels with Hal as he narrates the story in an open and often humorous way. But he is also faced with the serious prospect of death. In a moment of morbidity, he sits alone in his car and states: "I planned the music for my funeral," unsure of his future.

"Testosterone" began as a work of literature published in AARP Magazine, not intended for the stage. "I really wrote it just to get it out. I hadn't told a lot of people what I'd been going through and I wasn't sure what the hell was going to happen," Ackerman says of the story behind his brainchild. A noted poet, playwright, author and screenwriter, Ackerman sent the story to friends before deciding to adapt it on the recommendation of Paul Linke, a solo performer. He also did not picture himself as the leading man for this particular show. "I was really my fourth choice for casting, let's put it that way," jokes the professor, whose classes have gone uninterrupted for 22 years until production this week.

Ackerman's resumé is impressive, to say the least. The co-chair of the screenwriting program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, he is the author of a best-selling book on his method of writing and has mentored the screenwriters of films such as "A Walk on the Moon," "Matchstick Men," and "Terminal." But with his new play he wishes to do more than just gain recognition. "I am hoping ["Testosterone"] will allow men to talk, to let down some barriers that prohibit us from being able to think on our mortality."

The story is funny, touching and courageous - an inspiration for those with or without cancer. Ackerman's look at relationships from a male perspective when sex is scarce shines a new light on identity. "We're not just products of our chemistry," his character realizes at the end of the play. And though treatment robs Hal of his previous male characteristics, his moments of epiphany make it worthwhile. When his daughter insults him, he admits: "I would rather be alive and her wishing me dead, than dead and her wishing me alive." The show is an insightful look at reality when the unexpected happens and when who you are becomes a question.

"Testosterone: How Cancer Made a Man of Me" is playing at the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. until May 10. General Admission is $20, Students/Seniors/Cancer Survivors $15. For more information call (310) 396-3680 or visit www.powerhousetheatre.com.

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