Basketball Diary

by Andrew Parks

theater

Basketball and breast cancer: Now there's a parallel you don't see drawn every day.

Except in the case of award-winning poet and playwright Letta Neely. Her celebrated drama/comedy Last Rites uses the incomparable B-words as driving forces in an oblique storyline that addresses prickly areas of gender, sexuality, mortality and indirect or intentional abuse. Without getting too caught up in Neely's hard-packed narrative, the thrust of the story is love and loss. Patrice is fed up with her girlfriend Asha, so she leaves their pad and lands on the couch of Dutch, a former first-string baller. Asha's upset, of course, but that does little to hurt or help the other variable in the equation: Patrice's ongoing, losing battle with breast cancer. With Dutch as the middle woman, the trio proceeds to peel the layers off one another's veiled pasts and psyches. And we're left scrambling to piece together plot points of secrets and lies, right up until the distressful denouement.

A light night on the town it isn't. But Last Rites possesses the power that's commonplace in Neely's work, whether she's contributing a provocative piece to a literary magazine or anthology or weaving a play together for The Theater Offensive, a 15-year-old Boston company devoted to "cutting-edge queer culture" and marching "boldly forward on the cultural offensive line, swishing and stomping our way towards liberation." Since this play promises a lot to absorb, the Bride encourage attendees to visit their Gallery Cafe afterwards, where they'll be volunteers and information from Rainbow Circle. Rainbow Circle is a breast cancer education program for the queer community.

Last Rites, Thu., Feb. 17, 7 p.m., $15; Fri.-Sat., Feb. 18-19, 8 p.m.; $20, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215-925-9914, www.paintedbride.org.