‘GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis’, (An original play by Paul Addis) is an over-the-top evocation of the iconic inventor of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson — in all his paranoid pill-popping, booze-swilling, gun-toting, phantasmagorical-prose-spewing glory! ‘GONZO…’ takes us through the misadventures of Thompson’s early career, dropping us off before his famed takedowns of the war on drugs in Las Vegas and the ’72 presidential campaign. So we hear about his sojourn with the Hell’s Angels, his beating at the hands of the jackboots at the ’68 Democratic Convention in Chicago, his quixotic run for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado, and the improbable triumph of his scribbling on the 1970 Kentucky Derby- among others. It rails about the rise of the American nightmare to discussing the death of the American Dream all while worrying about his family, his personal liberties and freedom- on mescaline of course.
