John Leguizamo in Sexaholix. Photo by Joan Marcus

The marvelously manic Hispanic John Leguizamo bursts onstage with an energy level that does not cease until you are leaving the theater, a Latin beat reverberating in your ears while your head is filled with images of street gangs, three different girlfriends, and an entire family tree traced back to the Conquistadors, through grandparents to newborns. We meet them all via the rubber faced, loose limbed Latino on yet another autobiographical journey through boyhood to becoming a father.

What is touching is his ultimate transference from an admitted sexaholic (source of many hilarious and unprintable escapades) to a tender hearted loveaholic.

It has been very gratifying to follow the career of this charismatic young man which rises like a straight line right up the graph. His first off Broadway way appearance in l991's "Mambo Mouth" caught on almost immediately offering a fresh new genre of Spanish flavored comedy largely untapped in entertainment, especially in theater. Its success was quickly followed by another off-Broadway prize winner, "Spic-O-Rama" and then, in l998 to Broadway with "Freak", a daring venture for any solo artist, and now this follow up. Demonstrating his acting versatility the Leguizamo persona is barely recognizable onscreen as he has played a variety of stunningly portrayed different roles, a sensitive young drag queen in "To Wong Foo,
Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar", Toulouse-Lautrec in "Moulin Rouge", and now a mentally handicapped young man in the upcoming "King of the Jungle". Right from the start these endeavors have gleaned him almost every possible award in Theater and TV. Wow!

The show's press performances were delayed when its star broke a leg during rehearsal. And yet, a scant few weeks later is he is dancing not only onstage but in the aisles (be warned, young ladies with front aisle seats) and employing high energy body language as important as his vivid vocalization in comic riffs on alcoholic Vermont WASPS, Jewish in laws, and a black buddy, but also characters within the Hispanic community, differentiating between Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Dominicans, Jamaicans.

What makes him so successful is both the uniqueness and the universality of his material, although it certainly helps to be Spanish to understand fully his scenarios on such topics as: the arousal of two young brothers finding nudity in the encyclopedia , the disastrously funny intricacies of the sex act, an old man with a stroke and bladder control problems and, finally, an enactment of childbirth so graphic you feel you assist next time.

Leguizmo's shows are well constructed and he certainly knows how to conclude them with a fuzzy, warm moment, adding yet another surprising dimension to the previous material. In "Freak" it was a touching reunion with his father, here it is the love and wonder of being a father.

I suspect his next show will be filled with anecdotes on childrearing, and I'm sure it will just as funny and wonderful as this was.