Next Fall

Can a play be a great play without being a great theatre experience?  I fully believe that a play can be a great experience without being inherently great as a piece of literature, but is the reverse true?

Not that it matters, frankly, since Next Fall, the Naked Angels Theatre Company transfer from Off-Broadway, is certainly a great theatre experience.  Its a funny, touching, and engaging play, and the Broadway transfer brings it forth with comfort in the tiny Helen Hayes Theatre – uncomfortable seats included.

The play is ostensibly about a gay relationship, but its really about relationship standards.  There’s some hemming and hawing about partner rights in the hospital, but that’s hardly groundbreaking or thought-provoking (especially to an audience that is at least 3/4 gay men).  But the two main dramatic points are differing religious beliefs and being out to “the folks”.

The former, religious differences, get a bit heavy handed here.  An essentially perfect young gay man’s only major hang up is his blind devotion to his extremely strict religious beliefs – to the point that he feels that being gay is his real sin.  Its a little difficult to accept that he’s so open and physically comfortable, yet so pained.  Perhaps it was the performance, but Patrick Heusinger’s Luke never seems to be conflicted.  It was a little too cliched to hear the standard “love the sinner, hate the sin” diatribe, and frankly, it simply felt out of place.  Perhaps a bit dated.

Also being dated is an actor/cater-waiter living in New York being closeted to his parents – especially one as clearly batty as his at-one-point-turban-obsessed mother.  The setup, while certainly not far-fetched, felt dated in its execution.  I felt like I was watching a mid-to-late 1990′s gay movie.

But, aside from those central issues, the play is enjoyable.  While not a pinnacle of emotional resonance, it was nice to see the issues dealt with comfortably.  Patrick Breen’s Adam shoulders much of the complexity, despite being cast in the nebbishy New Yawkah role with some of the best zingers in the show.  His relationship with Heusinger’s Luke feels substantial, even if we don’t get a chance to see the emotional depth we’re led to believe is there.

The play’s set up is that Luke was hit by a car, and the “present” is set in a hospital waiting room.  Luke’s emergency contact, an awkwardly closeted old friend Brandon played quite well by Sean Dugan, is there with the requisite female best friend, played with full commitment by Maggie Corman, and Luke’s batty mom Arlene, played by Connie Ray who steals every scene she’s in.  Eventually, Adam makes his way in, as does Adam’s father and Arlene’s ex-husband – “Butch”, played by familiar character actor Cotter Smith.  The play presents flashbacks throughout Adam and Luke’s relationship – from the time they first met, to the remnants of their first hook-up, to a nearly disastrous and awkward encounter with Butch.

If the setup didn’t resonate, the dialogue did.  Geoffrey Nauffts has a real gift for eliciting complicated emotions out of rather simple, if cliche, situations.  Since I’m not a formal theatre critic, I don’t take notes during the show (unlike Ben Brantley, who scribbles furiously throughout), so I don’t have all of the zingers & well-crafted dialogue documented.  However, trust me when I say its there.  There’s a real sense of characterization at times that comes through what the performers say, almost more so than any physical representation.

That being said, the second act had some very moving moments.  Its always difficult to watch a parent grieve, much less a spouse/partner.  And its done here quite movingly, most notably by Smith.  As the revelations about the power the relationships involve have over the characters, Nauffts puts some nicely rendered insight into the lives before the audience.  There’s nothing particularly revelatory, but its well-crafted & ably delivered, at least from a intra-scene standpoint.

On the whole, the acting falls into the good category.  Smith and Ray have the meatier, showier elements to pull off, and they do.  Breen does an excellent job, even if some of the elements of his character don’t quite fit together.  Supposed to be able fifteen years older than his younger lover, Heusinger either looks older than he is or is older than his character.  His performance is very well intended, but fell a bit short due to his broadly drawn character.

What really suprised me was that Breen and Smith share an understudy.  That age difference wasn’t nearly culled out as much as it could have been in a daddy-issues subplot.  Not as surprising, but better drawn out was Dugan’s performance.  He was full of frustration and psychological restrictions based on his upbringing, and his pain represented on stage was quite palpable.  Kudos to him.  He’s familiar to me, since I both went to school with him (for like a minute) and from his time on Oz.

I’m leaving Maddie Corman for last, if only because she has the least drawn character to bring to life.  Her Holly reads like a late 90′s casting call for a gay movie (Trick, Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss, etc.) – she drinks, she wears cute shoes, she makes sassy comments, she brings wine, she dishes out sage advice – and its hard to make something like that seem fresh without something unique on the page.

While reading this over might seem like I didn’t enjoy the play, I did.  But its hard to grasp exactly what stood out so much for me to like it, when in reality, I’m grasping more at intentions & small moments.  I’ve said for years the LGBT community goes easy on our own stories, and maybe I’m doing that here.  It was an enjoyable night at the theatre, and certainly worth gaining legs from repeat viewings.

Squeeze into a seat & see it.

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