Theater2.NYTimes.com – By Jason Zinoman
Early in “Sisters, Such Devoted Sisters,” a crudely effective solo portrait of the seedy gay underworld in Glasgow, Russell Barr, the author and performer who portrays an angry, bruised drag queen, says that when he was young he accidentally cut off half his thumb.
“I was a great one for playing in puddles of glass,” he says, invoking a typically violent image.
Then Mr. Barr, decked out in black leather and caked-on rouge, raised his thumb and shoved it into the face of a man in the front row, close enough to make him look uncomfortable. And then, bizarrely, the actor froze, keeping his thumb there and saying nothing for about five seconds. The play is dotted with these pregnant pauses, and it’s in these mysterious moments that you get the first hint that this hard, emotionally cocooned character has something to hide.