Autism Injects Unique Aspect Into Light Switch’s Gay Romance

By  Bill Hirschman

From the opening moment of Light Switch at Island City Stage, Henry’s autism is inescapable.

He nearly leaps onto the stage with a blinding smile and vital eyes in a boyish face. His heaving body is in constant motion. His head moves at the joint of the neck. He puts his weight alternately on each leg. His hands are in motion or grasped behind his back.  He speaks in an unabridged torrent of crisp words. And there is something appealing, even slightly charismatic about him.

We will also learn that his autistic single-minded focus results in an unbounded compulsion to state what he perceives as the truth, literally unable to censor hurtful comments or observe polite social niceties. He terms someone “imbecilic” not meant as offense but as a cold observation. Armed with a Merriam-Webster dictionary inside his brain, he blithely corrects others misusing terms like esoteric for eccentric or correcting a friend who says, “I still live there” with “I still reside there.”

This is our hero of a classic romantic tale whose plot is so traditional that there is no surprise how this is going to evolve and turn out happily ever after for these gay protagonists.

But playwright Dave Osmundsen’s inserting autism complicates every step on that familiar arc. He provides a deeply insightful depiction of the emotional and psychological challenges for Henry trying to find and maintain relationships. But the overall vision is applicable to any of us which is a multi-layered set of themes in itself about connecting to a world around us while maintaining – or being unable to do anything but maintain – our individuality.

In one of Osmundsen’s most moving passages, he has Henry muse:

“Sometimes. I feel like there’s a light switch inside of me. Like when I think of Jane Austen. Or the Brontë sisters. Or Charles Dickens. And it’s always flipped upwards for those subjects and people. And it’s a big light switch, so it takes up a lot of space. But it’s hard to turn it off, because when it gets turned off, there’s nothing. I talk to other people, or see other people talking, and I can tell that they all have light switches, too. Of varying sizes. And they have the ability to flip these switches on and off, flip multiple switches at once. And they rarely go dark because if there’s one light switch off, they can always turn on another. There’s never darkness, nor nothingness in them. Whereas with me, I only have the one. But when I can turn my switch on, I can engage with people again. Until I have to turn it off again. Sometimes, I’d give anything to have access to every light switch possible.”

I must note that my brother and other relatives are “on the spectrum” — that latest phrase and diagnosis that has evolved and morphed decade after decade in my brother’s 72 years. And Osmundsen, who is autistic and gay, carefully notes the varied menu of symptoms that the developmental disability wreaks.

After an introductory scene, Henry is studying for his Ph.D. in 19^th Century British Literature – not just his favorite subject but the enveloping obsession in his autistic-driven single-minded consciousness. He has read his beloved Wuthering Heights 67 times (really) and has 19 copies of the Bronte book, along with Austen and Thackery.

He can quote passages at length. He also has absorbed hundreds and hundreds of biographical and historical facts about the authors and the period.

Osmundsen’s arc posits that the 27-year-old Henry is living with a sexually active gay friend, Roggie. The roomie is a handsome well-built podcaster with a wry sense of humor who preens his well-kept body, posing in a mirror wearing a swimsuit. He frequently has sex and often comes home drunk and has Henry read him to sleep with a chapter of Wuthering Heights.

They are reasonably close friends, but they do not have sex in order to assure their being roomies doesn’t get complicated. Indeed, it seems that Henry has never had sex, saying he prefers the romance in his volumes.

But Roggie takes him to a gay sex party where they meet the studly ne’er-do-well Joseph. Henry and Joseph eventually have sex. Henry then becomes obsessed with having a storybook relationship with Joseph who has no interest in a hookup with anyone for more than one night.

At one point, Roggie thoughtlessly refers to Henry as retarded, not meaning offense but employing a term that Henry abominates. It destroys their relationship.

And, of course, there’s a third act remaining,

Grant that the correctly unrelieved turmoil of Henry makes you wish the arc moved along a hair quicker. And actually, Roggie’s transformation from a self-involved party boy to a thoughtful, compassionate creature seems a tad unlikely.

As Henry, Gage Callenius is a name to remember. Carefully molded by the expert director Michael Leeds, his marathon performance is convincing physically and emotionally, consistent, detailed and covering a wide emotional range. Try to stay unmoved when Henry in the third act has a molten meltdown: crouching on the floor clutching to his chest a black carry bag, encompassing fury and fear, shaking and trembling, even jamming one arm deep into a sleeve wrenched down to cover his hand. Just memorizing Henry’s long lectures is an accomplishment. Callenius must be exhausted at the curtain.

It’s a far cry from his 2025 Silver Palm Award performance as the 17-year-old stormtrooper-in-the-making in The Last Yiddish Speaker at Theatre Lab. There, Gage played a character who could be sweet and romantic and then turn on a dime to do his rather nasty job.

Nods are also due to Irene Adjan as his mother, Larry Toyter as Roggie, Eric Gospodinoff as Joseph and Luis Roberto Herrera as various characters.

As the right couple finally join, we recall Osmundsen line from earlier in the evening: “You deserve to be loved the way you want to be.”

Note: A personal bugaboo in this time of increasingly problematic audience behavior. I know that you want to let the actors know they are gifting you a moving or hilarious experience. And there are occasional – just occasional – passages in a performance that arguably deserve an ovation mid-scene, let alone mid-play. But regularly applauding at the end of each scene is actually disruptive to the thrust of the play and doesn’t allow other audience members a few seconds during scene changes to absorb and reflect on what they have just scene.

Oh, and when they tell you to turn off your cellphone, they actually mean you Clyde. The new excuse from older patrons is that they didn’t know how to turn off their phone, and apparently did not know how to ask their neighbor how to do it before the curtain went up.

Light Switch plays through June 14 at Island City Stage, 2304 N Dixie Hwy, Wilton Manors. Shows 7 p.m. Thursday, 5 p.m. Sunday, 8 p.m.  Friday-Saturday.  Running time 2 hours including one intermission, Tickets $45-$50.  https://www.onthestage.tickets/ (954) 928-9800