CAPSULE REVIEW : ‘Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll’ Packs Punch

NEW YORK —  Subway panhandlers. Aging rock stars. Blue-collar punks. Rappers. Ruthless lawyers. Self-satisfied doctors. Street crazies. Drug heads.

Eric Bogosian hears America singing and the song is one of excess--and how people handle it.

His blistering portraits come to life in “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll,” a terrific collection of monologues that Bogosian unleashed Thursday at off-Broadway’s Orpheum Theater.

The dark, frizzy-haired performer has done one-man shows before, specifically “Funhouse” and “Drinking in America,” but in his latest effort Bogosian captures even more successfully the schizophrenic nature of his characters’ lives.

Nightmarish and comic at the same time, they sum up the late, not-so-lamented 1980s as the decade of greed and preoccupation with self.

Even Bogosian’s bums have an ego. “I’m a product of my environment,” snarls an aggressive subway beggar. “I want your money.”

Some of the material is savagely funny, particularly a geriatric pop idol who, now that he has made his dough, has discovered the evils of dope, the risks of sex and the plight of the Amazon rain forest.

There’s a chilling effect to the evening too, especially in the final, almost scary monologue when a stoned young man talks about computers taking over the world.

These machines are going to get you one way or another, he warns.

“Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll” is such a densely packed work that by the time it’s over, the audience is exhausted--from both laughing at, and worrying about, the memorable people Bogosian has put on stage.