Review: "Men are Trash and I'm a Raccoon" Will Hook Its Tiny Claws into You

Men are Trash and I’m a Raccoon

Created and performed by Felipe Luz

Presented by My Black Job Productions and The Tank at The Tank

312 W 36th St., Manhattan, NYC

November 21-22, 2025

Felipe Luz. Photo by Jason Albuquerque
For some of us, certain musical artists play a fundamental role in our self-fashioning and can provide feelings of recognition and belonging even when those feelings are otherwise absent. For multi-hyphenate artist Felipe Luz (he/they)–or at least the version of himself presented in his solo show Men are Trash and I’m a Raccoon–that musician is singer-songwriter Lana Del Ray. Early in this semi-autobiographical performance (Luz warns the audience that he is an unreliable narrator, even to himself, and that everything they will hear is fiction, but it is all true), he discusses how, when he was growing up in his native Brazil, Del Ray gave him both a picture of the American Dream and someone to relate to in his oft-broken-heartedness. Positioned somewhere between inspiration and guardian angel, Del Ray is evoked via music, images, scene titles, and more throughout Luz's hilarious, engaging, and unsparingly self-aware account of foraging in the contemporary dating landscape as a queer Latine man.
Felipe Luz. Photo by Jason Albuquerque
Before Luz appears on stage, we see him in a pre-show video loop that includes footage of a raccoon and of cruising detritus in Central Park's Ramble, played on the same large screen that will later display the show's scene or chapter titles. Upon entering, he crosses to the center of a set bedecked with, among other items, heart-shaped pillows, a leopard throw, and a wall full of Del Ray images, before which he kneels, head covered, in reverence as more images of the singer occupy the screen. This devotional pastiche shortly gives way to the story of the end of the last relationship in which Felipe was in love. He vows to give up love the next day, which the second scene title, "Tomorrow Never Came," quickly and humorously undercuts. In another very funny scene, he sets up a new Grindr profile, and much of what follows recounts the resulting encounters, among which is one that develops into something more and interspersed with which is Felipe's struggle with letting go of his ex (who, inconveniently for this effort, also pops back up on Grindr). In the end, this journey comes to a place from which Felipe simultaneously circles back to childhood traumas and looks ahead to an unwritten future.
Felipe Luz. Photo by Jason Albuquerque
In the most basic terms, at the heart of all this beats the desire to be loved, and to be loved unconditionally as a flawed human being–or maybe it is enough to say as a human being. At various times, Luz highlights his sensitivity and intensity of feeling (things he was taught were unacceptable), but he also does not shy away from describing his messiness, insecurity, and even pettiness. Some of his more mortifying experiences are linked to such flaws, but at the same time, these humiliations, and the sheer amount of effort expended in chasing sex and/or romance are baked into the contemporary app-based dating scene. One hook-up story in particular touches on intersecting power dynamics in a way that very vividly literalizes what Felipe has to put up with. But the show also underscores that in all of this metaphorical dumpster diving, he might be the trash to someone else's raccoon. The production, though, falls firmly in the treasure category. Whether Luz, nicely complemented by Jason Driver's lighting design, is storytelling, hilariously imitating a raccoon and its tiny hands, hallucinating an awards show, or showing off gentleman's club-worthy dance moves, he brings a prepossessing energy to even the darkest portions of the show, irresistibly inviting the audience into his confidence. Luz has said, “This is a rollercoaster of a play that I hope will ultimately reassure people that it’s okay that we all feel a lot all the time. It’s part of what makes being human beautiful. In desensitizing times like ours, people need to feel, especially in communion.” It's hard to disagree with that sentiment–and who wouldn't want to be part of a community of trash pandas, even if only for about 70 minutes?

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

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