Zeitgeist Stage returns us to 1968 with a charged production
of Mart Crowley’s THE BOYS IN THE BAND (playing through Oct. 3rd).
As director David Miller says in his program notes, “In the age of Marriage
Equality, it’s easy to lose sight of the challenges faced by past generations.”
Challenges indeed. It seemed like a massive struggle at the
time. By 1967, JFK, Medgar Evers and Malcolm X had been assassinated. 1968
brought the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Boston was the wild west,
with B.C. boys driving around with impunity finding gay men to bash: Lost eyes.
Lost teeth. Lost innocence. (Not to mention the lost lives in Viet Nam.) It
was not a very good year.
Mart Crowley’s play broke new ground, paving the
way for the insightful gay plays that followed. As often happens, when you
revisit something you thought was so convincing at the time, you discover its
flaws. The playwright crowds THE BOYS IN THE BAND with break-ups, breakthroughs,
breakdowns and some hilarious breakout line dancing. He tries to cover all the
bases by populating his play with a married man who’s out, a married man who’s
definitely interested but denies it, a self-hating hedonist, a self-sacrificing
librarian, a flamboyant queen, his African-American lover, a semi-suicidal wag,
a street hustler and a player.
BOYS still works despite the tropes and the bizarre party
game which (is the device that) gets everyone to reveal the “truth.” I’m
inclined to think it works in great part owing to Miller’s witty direction and his
talented cast. Victor Shopov has the most difficult role because his character
swings wildly from self-pity to menace as host of the birthday party—where the rest of the characters are
reactive. Your heart goes out to Diego Buscaglia as Shopov’s long suffering
boyfriend.
Mikey DiLoreto supplies cheeky humor as the drama queen who
likes to push the envelope. The nasty party game (not unlike the ones Albee
invents for WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF) leaves Damon Singletary’s character
shaken to the core. His agony is palpable. (As for the racist revelations, they
seemed out of character for either man.) Bob Mussett, too, earns our sympathies
as the elegant straight (laced) teacher who can’t understand why Gene Dante’s
character needs multiple partners. Dante and Mussett have a lovely scene which
offers hope for at least one of the couples.
Brooks Reeves wears his raw nerves on the outside as the
interloper who may or may not enjoy the party. Ryan Landry gives the obstinate
birthday boy a kind heart with a reassuring exit line to a despairing Shopov.
Richard Wingert brightens up the Sturm and Drang of the relationship crises as
the sweetest of hustlers. He made me think of John Voigt in MIDNIGHT COWBOY.
In the “more things change, the more they stay the same”
category, there was the host of the birthday party, obsessing about his hair:
He says he has one which he combs forward and flips backward to cover a
multitude of sins…and then he references Ayn Rand. For a moment I thought 1968
had collided with the 2015 Republican apprentices! Let’s not do THE TIME WARP
again.
