‘Starf*ckers’ — Written and performed by John Kuntz. Directed by Alex Lonati. Lighting Design by Sawyer Grabow; Sound Design by Alex Lonati and Anna Drummond. The run has ended.

By Shelley A. Sackett

When local playwright, actor, director and solo performer John Kuntz débuted Starf*ckers in 2000 at Speakeasy Stage Company, it garnered the Norton Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. Over a quarter of a century later, the 90-minute piece about a handful of characters’ obsession with celebrity and fame has, if anything, mushroomed in relevance, affecting all of us, from adults to young children. With the invention and accessibility of “new and improved” technology and social media platforms, today’s fixation on likes, follows and filters has created its own menu of psychosocial disorders and challenges, including but not limited to anxiety, depression, cyberbullying, and the exaggeration of unrealistic beauty standards.

All of which is not meant to plunge us into despair, but rather to point out how timely and indeed prescient Kuntz’s piece remains.

The intermission-less evening begins with Kuntz chatting with the audience in real, 2026 time. He references reviews when the play first opened (“Joyce’s Choices” raved; The Evening Transcript “not so much”) and contemporary examples of what the show we’re about to see is about (“Sydney Sweeney — look her up”).

Then the lights dim (Lighting Design by Sawyer Grabow) and Kuntz scampers over to a clothing rack which contains all he will need to transform into six characters who have one thing in common: they would all sell their soul (and probably their mother’s and children’s) for fame of the David Bowie variety.

The first character (who bookends the play’s seven vignettes) is a no-talent actress auditioning for a part in Xanadu: The Musical that she will never get. She is presumptive, rude, crude and clueless. She offers to sleep with anyone and everyone before going postal at a “No, thank you” response. Kuntz couldn’t be more convincing as this excruciatingly awful leech.

Sprite-like, Kuntz dashes to the clothing rack, changing from one character to the next with the simplest costume adjustment, his chameleon features fully exploited to theatrical advantage by Grabow’s literally spot-on lighting. He introduces us in turn to five others who were bitten hard by the showbiz bug.

There is a man who spent a brief time as Julia Roberts’ best friend, to a disastrous end. There is Ginger Grant, a Nora Desmond-esque fading actress who recounts her life’s story to a man she is on a first date with. Turns out “Gilligan’s Island” was not as much fiction as fact, and the Professor and Mary Ann were sources of a secret sauce. Kuntz shines in this role, both as performer and storyteller, though the story could be edited a tad to excise repetition and retain audience interest.

In “Pig-man,” the man whose advertising career and life go south after he invests in irreversible self-mutilating surgery, Kuntz is unable to rein in his sheer joy at playing such a revolting, pig-hearted, and scandalously funny clout chaser.

A creepy “Adonis” who looks and sounds AI-created and advertises useless products while repeating, “I say what you want to hear” is next. This one, with its bloodless monologue about conquering and consuming the world and Brown Shirt aura, is a little too close for contemporary comfort.

The evening’s most (and, perhaps, only) endearing character is a retired “Smurfs on Ice” road manager and cat collector being interviewed by Cat Fancy Magazine. Channeling Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire, Kuntz creates a full-fleshed, appealing grandmother type whose backstory reveals humility, compassion and integrity. Fame was never her holy grail, and what she’s doing hanging out with the rest of this motley crew only Kuntz knows, but she is a welcome palate cleanser.

Finally, we are full circle back to that Sydney Sweeney wannabe. While some sketches are more silly than funny and the script could use paring down in spots, Kuntz brings a vibrancy of spirit and talent that is refreshing and unique, and an evening spent with him and his posse of Starf*ckers is an evening well spent indeed.