God forbid. Please don't let anything happen to Stephen Hando. But if it did—let's just say it did, like one day he's on his way to Gorditos in Greenwood and a piano falls on his head—at least you could say, "He went out on an up note. Did you see Torso? Holy shit." Mr. Hando has been being brilliant since Rm 608's early-'90s soap opera Shuddering Pines. He was brilliant again as the lead in Greek Active's mid-'90s King John and Printer's Devil Theater's late-'90s Free Will and Wanton Lust, and he is known in the biz as a uniquely gifted comic actor. What wasn't fully obvious before Torso is that he's an actor of unbelievable subtlety and range. He makes characters you could stare at forever. Of the 16 characters in Torso, he played five, including a twitchy, paranoid, inarticulate stoner in Minnesota who's lost his grip on his gardening business and is so consumed with furious envy that he kills his brother. Torso climaxed with Mr. Hando walking out soaked in blood and being stripped and hosed down by his sister and girlfriend, while recounting how he did it. Some admirers in the audience were said to have regretted the nudity was not frontal, but no one regretted witnessing the brilliance. An actor most known for humorous roles twisted himself into a poor miserable fuck whose lonely implosion will forever haunt our imaginations. Meanwhile, happily—thankfully—Mr. Hando endures. As does Gorditos.