Stage/Theatre

What: White Muscle Daddy
Where: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander St.
When: Wed., Mar. 20 to Sun., Mar. 31
Why you should go: Aesthetically daring Raf Antonio show blends several different genres.

Money. Fame. Muscles.

When recently hired gym employee Jeremy Río first encounters party-loving fitness influencer Eugene, that’s all he sees.

Kept at a barbell’s distance, Jeremy’s admiration for Eugene’s luxurious lifestyle would be one thing. But in Raf Antonio’s White Muscle Daddy, a Pencil Kit Productions and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre co-production, desire quickly balloons to an obsession of the insatiable sort often seen in horror flicks.

In a post-rehearsal interview, Antonio (who uses they/them pronouns) tells me about how the play came to be. “I grew up in Saskatchewan, and my family was one of the only brown families in town. And I didn’t really realize how much a certain way of looking at things had permeated myself,” they say. “This idea … that a marginalized person can marginalize someone else — I don’t think I ever really understood the gravity of that until I was here in Toronto and learning from a bunch of different people.

“So that’s where it came from. The original version was literally a two-hander of a young Latino kid and this older white man hooking up, talking about their lives and their different experiences.”

Now there’s a cast of six, along with a bevy of additional design elements, including projections (by Nicole Eun-Ju Bell), live cameras and shadow play.

It’s also, you know, fun. Antonio is quick to emphasize that despite some serious themes, “there’s a lot of levity to it.”

Much of this excitement stems from the play’s genre — horror with a dose of thriller — which Antonio chose for its ability to provide catharsis. “It’s just a great way to have this metaphorical look at our lives … [it lets you] feel the things that you need to feel and work through them in a way that [is] safe.”

Since White Muscle Daddy draws heavily on cinema (one character is even a filmmaker), Antonio is co-directing the show with Tricia Hagoriles, who has helmed several short films.

Co-directing “has been very insightful,” says Hagoriles. “We can have two brains going, which, for this process specifically, has been very much needed.”

Antonio agrees. “If I had decided to direct this on my own … I wouldn’t have had the same language with the camera operators,” they say. “It was so essential.”

The duo’s collaboration seems to thrive on references to other media. When I ask about the show’s influences, the list is long and esoteric, ranging from Brian De Palma’s voyeuristic Body Double to Alain Guiraudie’s French thriller Stranger by the Lake to the Portuguese erotic drama O Fantasma to the films of Sofia Coppola. Hagoriles even shows me a photo of Caravaggio’s bloody oil painting Judith Beheading Holofernes.

This blend of aesthetics is exactly what the directors think will draw audiences to White Muscle Daddy — beyond the title, that is. “Come see a live horror-film-theatre hybrid,” encourages Hagoriles. “Yeah! Come watch a live film,” says Antonio. “Feel a little spooky, [a little perverse and] a little horny.”