While the script is razor-sharp, shaky performances and cramped staging by Flamboyán Theatre and The Three Leaches blunt its impact.

Stephen Adly Guirgis’ The Motherfucker with the Hat is a play that thrives on volatility. It’s a tragic sex farce where sobriety doesn’t cure dysfunction and fidelity is as elusive as the truth.

On opening night at the current production in Lakewood, Flamboyán Theatre and The Three Leaches leaned into that grit. What emerged, however, was a production that felt too often constrained by its staging, pacing and performances, which rarely explored the full breadth of Guirgis’ script.

The story centers on Jackie (Manny Minaya), a recently released petty drug dealer trying to stay clean with the help of AA meetings and the guidance of his slick sponsor Ralph D. (J.C. Reyes). Jackie’s volatile relationship with his girlfriend Veronica (Jill Sedó), who’s still using, combusts when he finds an unfamiliar man’s hat in her apartment.

Suspicions, betrayals and violent confrontations spiral from that single object, pulling in Jackie’s loyal cousin Julio (MarkAnthony Grabador) and Ralph’s bitter wife Victoria (Melissa Leach).

It’s the kind of play that thrives on momentum. Guirgis structures the piece as a series of confrontations that should tumble into each other with the energy of a bar fight. Instead, director Jon Marcantoni’s staging in Lakewood’s 70-seat black box struggles against the limitations of the deep but narrow space.

With three rigidly defined sets — Jackie and Veronica’s bedroom, Ralph and Victoria’s apartment and Julio’s living room — scenes felt boxed in and static. Transitions dragged, lighting often left actors in shadow and the action rarely broke free of couches and tables that hemmed it in. The first act, in particular, sagged under the weight of these choices.

Chemistry in conflict, faltering elsewhere

At the play’s center, Minaya and Sedó spar with enough crackling energy to sell Jackie and Veronica’s toxicity. Their early bedroom fight, triggered by Jackie’s discovery of the titular hat, crackled with the messy push-pull of a couple who can’t let go, even when love has rotted into codependency.

But outside those heated clashes, both actors struggled. Minaya’s Jackie leaned too one-note, channeling rage without fully inhabiting the character’s despair or self-delusion. A moment when Jackie should collapse, sobbing in Veronica’s arms, felt forced and performative. Sedó fared better delivering Veronica’s sharp-tongued one-liners but faltered in subtler emotional beats, especially once her affair with Ralph came to light.

Reyes’s Ralph was most convincing in the first act, playing the smooth-talking sponsor you’d almost buy as a role model. Yet his performance stayed at surface level, never hinting at the scheming or menace beneath Ralph’s charm.

By the time the truth of his infidelities unraveled, the revelation felt more told than shown. Ralph’s climactic confrontation with Jackie, complete with staged punches, also fizzled. Andy Slimrod’s fight choreography lacked impact, and the actors’ awkward pacing left the scene looking blocked rather than lived.

MarkAnthony Grabador and J.C. Reyes in ‘The Motherfucker with the Hat.’

Supporting roles bring needed spark

If the leads sometimes floundered, the supporting players supplied welcome jolts of authenticity.

Grabador’s Cousin Julio was the standout of the evening. Flamboyant, grounded and deeply funny, Grabador captured both Julio’s eccentricity and his steadfast loyalty. His comic timing earned some of the show’s biggest laughs, especially in moments where he slipped from warmth into toughness without missing a beat. Crucially, he also listened onstage, reacting with honesty that elevated every scene he touched.

Melissa Leach delivered a similarly grounded turn as Victoria, Ralph’s long-suffering wife. Her dry, unsentimental delivery cut through the clutter, giving Victoria a weary dignity even as she lashed out at Jackie and her philandering husband. The scene in which Victoria unleashes her rage on Jackie was one of the few moments of true dramatic bite.

Staging that doesn’t support the material

Ultimately, the biggest obstacle facing this production is that the staging never quite fits the space it inhabits. The Three Leaches’ black box is deep but narrow, a layout that demands fluid, imaginative use of its playing area.

Instead, Marcantoni’s direction and the design box characters into cramped corners, with static blocking and rigid set pieces that drain energy from Guirgis’s combustible script. In a play where confrontations should erupt like street brawls, too many moments land with the weight of a rehearsal exercise.

That mismatch is especially disappointing because the collaboration between Flamboyán Theatre and The Three Leaches represents an important step forward for Denver’s theatre landscape.

As the metro’s only Puerto Rican theatre company, Flamboyán has committed itself to showcasing Boricua culture while embracing a Pan-Latiné ethos that connects across communities. Their residency in the 40 West Arts District has already carved out a crucial space for cultural celebration, exchange and artistic risk-taking.

Choosing The Motherfucker with the Hat makes sense: Guirgis’s work is a contemporary classic that puts addiction, loyalty and toxic love under a microscope while speaking to the urgency of survival and community. But material this sharp demands staging to match its ferocity, and here the production comes up short.

Too often, the energy sagged, the pacing stalled and the performances leaned on surface-level line readings rather than subtext. Guirgis’s high-octane rhythm, meant to barrel forward with relentless momentum, never fully revved in Lakewood. Overall, The Motherfucker with the Hat too often felt like a fight muffled by its own staging.

For a play about passion, betrayal and the chaos of recovery, this version kept things frustratingly contained.