This iteration of Macho Stereo was a durational performance by Marcus Kuiland Nazario with Paul Donald presented by CultureHub, a collaboration between the legendary New York theater La MaMa and the Seoul Institute of the Arts at Hot Shot Muffler in Highland Park.

Outside, we see two men dressed in identical black Dickie overalls gradually fall into the rhythms of a Laurel and Hardy routine amid a set of matching sawhorses, turntables and tools in the courtyard of a converted workshop where a gate frames a slice of York Avenue, as passersby and traffic form a living backdrop reminiscent of Squat Theater’s 1980s New York performances played before a shop window.

Donald recites briefly from Moby Dick: “Upon waking the next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown over me in the most loving manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife… .” Then he expertly handles a saw, cutting two-by-fours into shorter equal lengths. Kuiland Nazario awkwardly mimics him. Eventually the pair create what look like identical pieces of fence. These barriers are placed between them, suspending them from their chest like medieval breastplates, hindering their subsequent movements with the rope holding them in place spiraling down Kuiland Nazario’s back like a pig’s tail. Kuiland Nazario wanders out into the street, then back again. Suddenly a black fabric fringe-like cartoon mustache appears, which later is nailed by each performer onto the fence above the other’s groin, transformed into pubic hair. Meanwhile, the men struggle to play vinyl on the matching turntables: kitschy ’70s music and a hilarious 1950s sound documentary about adopting a dog. “His name is Sinbad because he’s bad and was born in sin,” intones one dog owner as the two men grapple with each other and begin cutting off pieces of one another’s uniform. Meanwhile, a man on a red motorcycle parks across the street, watching them and us. Eventually, Donald’s uniform is destroyed, and near naked, his body articulates the movements heretofore obscured by the uniform. It’s over.

Kuiland Nazario’s ongoing exploration of masculinity demands that men step outside the roles they play to see them for the trap that they are.