CATSKILL – Bridge Street Theatre’s stage has hosted monsters before, including Victor Frankenstein’s tormented creation, but they’ve never been as surprising and seemingly harmless as Pup, a tousle-haired 16-year-old boy whose vivid nightmares bring terror into the home he shares with his late father’s husband, Remy.

They’re the only two onstage characters in “Monsters of the American Cinema,” a 2022 play by Christian St. Croix that is receiving its regional premiere at Bridge Street, where it runs through June 7. The play flouts theatrical and storytelling conventions, from having the characters directly address the audience in overlapping duologues, to frequently discussing people we’ll never meet, to refusing to help us understand what’s going on at times, or when the action is taking place, or even what’s real.

Theater Review

“Monsters of the American Cinema”

When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Bridge Street Theatre, 44 W. Bridge St., Catskill
Running time: 105 minutes, no intermission
Continues: 7 p.m. Saturday and June 4 to 6; 2 p.m. Sunday and June 7
Tickets: $30 ($25 students)
Info: 518-943-3818 and bridgest.org

But if you surrender to the vision of the author, as realized by director Tony Speciale, an excellent design team and a pair of brave, committed actors, “Monsters of the American Cinema” is an absorbing, entertaining, often compelling experience. That’s in large part because it seems at first like it will be familiar – a domestic dramedy about characters who overcome differences and arrive at understandings.

This is not that kind of play.

The gay, Black Remy (Robert Zelaya) and straight, white Pup (Nicholas Snipes) live in the San Diego area, where Remy’s late husband, Brian, was the second-generation owner of a drive-in theater. Their home is described as an RV, though the set, by Bridge Street’s acting artistic director, Mark Perry, looks like a trailer home. They’ve built a comfortable, friendly relationship in the years since Brian’s death, bonding over a shared love of classic horror films like “Dracula,” “Frankenstein” and “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” a poster for which hangs on Pup’s bedroom wall. They play verbal games that riff on the movies’ titles and actors, and screen them, too, with clips projected on the back of the set.

Pup, in a captivating performance by Snipes, whether he’s a charming, smart teen or a curious 6-year-old, is an aspiring filmmaker. His camcorder captures an ugly incident in which he and friends bully a transgender student at their high school. Remy, who sold an heirloom to buy Pup the camera as a birthday gift, sees the footage and feels betrayed, outraged and heartbroken.

In a less ambitious work, the resolution of that conflict would be enough. St. Croix goes far beyond that, overstuffing the play with exposition about Remy’s relationships with his father and with Brian – the play feels at least 15 minutes too long – and by giving Pup what seems to be a nightmare disorder. As he’s grown from a boy who sleepwalked, growled and curled up to sleep at the foot of his father’s bed to a lanky near-man, Pup’s episodes have worsened. They culminate in a scene in which, clad only in his boxers, he prowls ferally around the room, leaps on a table and smears himself with red paint. He’s a bloody beast roaring at the universe, an effect enhanced by the superb sound and projections, by Carmen Bogia, and lighting, by Travis McHale. (A minor thought: Maybe don’t expose young kids to lots of horror films?)

It’s an irresistible role for a young actor, and Snipes, who graduated with an acting degree from New York University only last year, wholly inhabits the character. Zelaya’s Remy is an able foil, and example, for Pup. Remy can be flamboyant and sassy, but the crucible of growing up gay, Black and Southern, with a preacher father, forged a steely soul at his core. Pup hasn’t fully recognized it yet, but while his dad is long dead, the role model of what a real man can be has been right in front of him for most of his life.

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This article originally published at Review: Exploring ‘monsters’ within and without in Catskill.