Stephen Sondheim loved how gay Broadway’s ‘Company’ revival is, says star Matt Doyle

Contents:

• THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME
• WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE GREAT GAY PLAY? EVERYTHG.
• STEPHEN SONDHEIM LOVED HOW GAY BROADWAY’S ‘COMPANY’ REVIVAL IS, SAYS STAR MATT DOYLE
• GAY ON BROADWAY: THE BT QUEER AND GENRQUEER CHARACTERS
• WHY IS THE THEATER SO MEANGFUL TO GAY PEOPLE?AN INTERVIEW WH JORDAN ROTH.
• AN EPIC NEW BROADWAY PLAY ON MORN GAY LIFE ASKS: N WE LOVE OURSELV?
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS
• MEET THE ALL-STAR, ALL-GAY ST OF BROADWAY'S UPG REVIVAL OF THE BOYS THE BAND
• GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTCric’s NotebookIn recent shows, ias of gayns are expandg, bg and disappearg all at WisemanI don’t know whether was bee my parents were jt generally open-md, or bee they had a specific, kdly yet mortifyg agenda, but one of the first Broadway plays they took me to, June of 1977, was way too gay for fort. Some, like “A Strange Loop” and “Fat Ham, ” dramatize how the experience of racism amplifi that of homophobia, and vice fy expectatns by makg sexual orientatn a distctly sendary ncern among characters who “happen to be” gay or lbian, as “A Case for the Existence of God” and “At the Weddg. When a (male) love tert enters the picture, and they sg Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” as a duet, you feel somethg new has happened, as ntroversy melts to a blissful cloud of nonbary bubble is the equalizg, homogenizg fluence of pop culture at work — an fluence that some queer people unrstandably mistst.

Jackson’s “A Strange Loop” go further, makg the cross-pollatn of inty the prime source of s nflict, as the ma character nonts both the homophobia of his Black fay and the racism of his queer one. ) Its body, race and orientatn issu are left a kd of stalemate that suggts what might happen if a foundatnal gay play like “The Boys the Band” (which had only one Black character) were multiplied fun hoe mirrors ad fum. That the Hamlet figure, lled Juicy, is Black and gay, wh an termtent csh on a Laert-like iend, suggts that the queer theme will domate, yet don’t; “Fat Ham” is really a play about Black masculy and, even more broadly, the vlent herance all men mt renounce.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE GREAT GAY PLAY? EVERYTHG.

” Beltran portrays a gay Black man hopg to adopt the young girl he’s been Klwich/The New York TimMy other favore queer plays of the past year likewise offer no bands; their gay characters (there are still far too few lbian on) operate as if their gayns were mostly ternal and pletely irrelevant. Hunter’s heartbreakg “A Case for the Existence of God, ” that turns out to be an illn, as a gay Black man, after fosterg a ltle girl for more than three years, fds his plan to adopt her undone at the last mute.

If there are subtle ways which their sexual inti affect their character or behavr, they were too subtle for me; miss a le or two and you may not even know that gayns is a part of their makp at mak sense plays about cris that threaten to oblerate a person entirely: genr, race, orientatn and all. The heartbreakg drama tells the bgraphil story of celebrated graphic artist Alison Bechl as she disvers her sexual orientatn while tryg to unrstand how she relat to her father -- himself a closeted gay man who ms suici four months after she out. For all the awards he was nomated and won over his lifetime — a Pulzer Prize, eight Tony awards, an Osr and eight Grammys — this revival marks his first ever nomatn for a GLAAD award, given to works the media for their fair, accurate and clive reprentatns of the LGBTQ what is this revival — helmed by Obie-wng Brish director Marianne Elltt — sayg by makg one of the uple — the uple gettg married — gay?

”Doyle believ that Pl and Jamie are very reprentative of gay upl livg New York Cy today, tryg to navigate the nservative nf of marriage paired wh the liberatg ials often assumed of a gay liftyle. “One of the pots that he ma was that he uldn’t believe that some younger people the dience didn’t regnize what a huge al was to have this gay uple this Sondheim, he was most fascated at how the mil had evolved over the last 50 years and what that reprented society, but also how dience members of differg generatns perceived the chang so ntrastgly om one another.

STEPHEN SONDHEIM LOVED HOW GAY BROADWAY’S ‘COMPANY’ REVIVAL IS, SAYS STAR MATT DOYLE

As print and majory shareholr Jujamcyn Theaters, he ntrols five Broadway ho, makg him the New York theater world’s third-biggt landlord, and as an openly gay man, he’s also one of the cy’s most proment out bsmen. I spoke to him on June 1, jt after Calyn Jenner’s Vany Fair ver was revealed, about how the theatergog experience is changg, why theater n be pecially meangful to gay people, and whether Broadway is too reliant on the Tonys.

GAY ON BROADWAY: THE BT QUEER AND GENRQUEER CHARACTERS

Jordan Barbour, Darryl Gene Dghtry Jr., Kyle Soller, Arturo Luís Soria and Kyle Harris ‘The Inherance’ (photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMa, 2019)The central theme of plays about ntemporary gay life—a lerature that n be traced back half a century to 1968’s “The Boys the Band”—has not been the trma of g out, the stggle for civil rights or the fight agast H. This quandary is obvly as relevant to straight dienc as to gay on, and fds eloquent if over-dulgent new exprsn “The Inherance, ” an epic two-part play now on s most basic level, Matthew Lopez’s play is a portra of lennial gay male life New York Cy, and is a picture both celebratory and utnary. Matthew Lopez’s play is a portra of lennial gay male life New York Cy, and is a picture both celebratory and bds them is the ual tangle of affy and mutual need, as well as an impossibly posh Upper Wt Si apartment, which Eric has hered thanks to rent ntrol.

It is the and Eric’s votn to hearg them out that lk “The Inherance” to a robt legacy of plays about what the gay experience n teach all about the steep st of love and the even steeper st of the failure to love.

Some believed that after seeg the play whereby the gay characters brought their feelgs out of the closet, set a tone that gays should no longer settle for nsirg themselv as pathetic, which uld have been an spiratn for the Stonewall uprisg 1969. Wh mic and lyrics by Jonathan Larson and based on Pucci’s opera La bohème, Rent tells the story of a group of broke young artists and micians cludg gay and lbian characters stgglg to survive and create New York Cy’s Lower East Si Alphabet Cy, wh HIV/AIDS as a signifint backdrop to the storyle. Given that there were gay ma characters, the mic and lyrics were penned by a gay poser Jerry Herman and the book wrten by Harvey Fierste who is also gay, there is no qutn La Cage serv the top spot.

WHY IS THE THEATER SO MEANGFUL TO GAY PEOPLE?AN INTERVIEW WH JORDAN ROTH.

In wrg , Crowley had liberately taken up the challenge tossed down by the theater cric Stanley Kffmann, who a 1966 New York Tim say headled “Homosexual Drama and Its Disguis” asked why that era’s most famo gay playwrights — meang Edward Albee, Tennsee Williams and William Inge — didn’t wre about themselv and leave straights alone. ”) Still, there was no nyg that ank plays about gay male life had never reached the mastream, never perated the circl which Kffmanns and Roths and social Crowley wrote the bt and funnit and gayt play he uld, about ne gay men (or maybe eight and a half) at a birthday party. Though some of the men fse the ambient homophobia of the time better than others, almost all of them suffer om the self-hatred that seemed then, and maybe now, to filtrate even the bt-fend personaly.

At a time when many of the classic gay plays are returng to the Broadway stage — “Boys the Band, ” “Angels Ameri” and “Torch Song Trilogy” among them — almost no new on are on the horizon to jo them. I wre that admirg many of s spirual forebears, om Tennsee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie” 1945 to Robert Anrson’s “Tea and Sympathy” 1953 to the early works of Doric Wilson, Lanford Wilson, Robert Patrick and many others who helped spark an efflorcence of downtown gay drama centered at Caffe Co, wh s makhift k-crate stage, startg while buildg on those — and, Crowley says, on Arthur Lrents’s screenplay for Aled Hchck’s 1948 film, “Rope, ” which two gay men murr a classmate for sport — “The Boys the Band” has had the more nsequential gay trajectory. They and the rt of the starry st are succsful, openly gay men, as are the producers, Ryan Murphy and David Stone, and the director, Joe was a liberate statement, meant to acknowledge how far the world has e sce 1968.

AN EPIC NEW BROADWAY PLAY ON MORN GAY LIFE ASKS: N WE LOVE OURSELV?

In the aftermath of the Stonewall rts of 1969, while the play still ran, s portrayal of gay male life me to be seen as unterrevolutnary, which was exactly backward, if unrstandable light of the rebrandg unrway. The characters’ promiscuo, boa-flgg, “Oh, Mary”-spoutg, drown-your-troubl--a-vodka-bottle histrnics were distctly off-msage durg the years when gay men were tryg to cultivate lawmakers and police wh their new imag as activists or pillars of the muny, not of Sodom. And bee I’m wrg about plays that have shaped gay male life, ’s not surprisg that all the playwrights I name are gay hardly needs argug that one of them is Tony Khner, whose play “Angels Ameri: A Gay Fantasia on Natnal Them, ” opened on Broadway 1993.

Emphasizg that, the set sign by Eugene Lee and Keh Raywood featured on the theater’s walls a nng list of the nam of the ad, along wh the mountg ath toll, subtotaled by by Martha Swope / the New York Public LibraryThe actn largely tracks Kramer’s fur battle to get the ernment, the medil tablishment and gay men themselv to pay attentn to the disaster that was jt begng to engulf them. An ventory of my tongue yields nothg that looks like my mother the remblance stops at the mouth She is fluent a language I am only ever ugly she falls asleep ont of the tv her show muted I wonr if her dreams I n speakThe actor reads "Translatn" by Julian the efficy of the nonil gay plays did not pend, or pend only, on gay dienc. Like other margalized groups — Jews of an earlier generatn who objected to the tenement soap operas of Clifford Ots; blacks who found Uncle Tomism Lorrae Hansberry’s “A Rais the Sun” — many gays saw betrayal hont, let alone exaggerated, portras.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS

“Jefey, ” too, may be theater huntg; a recent readg starrg Urie and Rsell Tovey was part an experiment to see how lands eper reason this material holds up spe beg so tied to s tim is that gayns, even now, do not operate as other mory inti do. Or to put more gaily, you are what we Murphy, such tellectual workarounds are unnecsary; he fds “The Boys the Band” forward-thkg whether or not you nsir that was wrten a time when “you uld lerally be arrted” for beg gay. But issu like the are a b baggy for great drama, and plays that qutn the homonormative movement (like Drew Droege’s hilar 2016 anti-marriage screed “Bright Colors and Bold Patterns”) seem sted for a short shelf life.

As if turng Kffmann’s 1966 say on s head, many of the bt young gay male playwrights — Stephen Karam, Jordan Harrison, Brann Jabs-Jenks — no longer wre about gay people anyway, or wre about them only peripherally. ” If “The Inherance” hews to the Forsterian theme of nostalgia for a purposeful past, as s tle suggts may, would be a very apt gay play for this particular among new works I’ve actually seen, the only gay — or, rather, queer — theater piece that ris to the level of those I’ve beatified is Taylor Mac’s “A 24-De History of Popular Mic, ” which premiered as a plete work at St. In this chronologil list of semal events and selected theatril landmarks, you’ll fd a wi variety of gay, lbian and transgenr characters and stori – om gay men New York stgglg wh self-loathg The Boys the Band to a young lbian North Carola proudly facg her fay The Cake.

MEET THE ALL-STAR, ALL-GAY ST OF BROADWAY'S UPG REVIVAL OF THE BOYS THE BAND

1975: The Rz by Terrence McNally(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 3f, 14m) Terrence McNally managed to be both a tradnalist and a pneer wh this uproar 1975 Broadway h; he set his tradnal door-slammg farce a gay bathhoe. 1978: Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierste(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2f, 4m)In 1978, gay “clone culture” was on the rise; many gay Amerins tried to assiate by appearg more “straight, ” and Amerins beme more faiar wh imag of butch gay men. ) “At the height of the post-Stonewall clone era, ” wrote playwright Charl Bch a 2002 article for The Advote, “Harvey [Fierste] challenged both gay and straight dienc to champn an effemate gay man’s longgs for love and fay.

1981: March of the Falsettos by William Fn(Full-Length Mil, Dramatic Comedy / 1f, 3m, 1 boy) Two years after his experimental mil In Troers troduced a gay character named Marv ntemplatg the women (and men) his life, William Fn expand Marv’s universe the one-act mil March of the Falsettos, which premiered at Playwrights Horizons on May 20, 1981. Wrten before AIDS reached the public nscns (and premierg jt two days after the first published report of what was later lled AIDS) Fn’s nrotic, lightful mil celebrat gay fai, therapy, Jewishns and personal growth wh no ht of the panmic to e. A barely fictnalized acunt of Larry Kramer’s life experience as -founr of GMHC and ACT-UP, the play ncerns Ned Weeks, a gay activist enraged at the difference of public officials and the gay muny.

GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

Through several further llaboratns, cludg Brave S: Another Lbian Tragedy, The Secretari, Bris of the Moon and Oedip at Palm Sprgs, The Five Lbian Brothers ntued to create and perform over the next two s, a time when news of gay men and AIDS often overshadowed stori of lbian liv.

2004: The History Boys by Alan Bent(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1f, 11m)First prented by the Natnal Theatre at the Lyttleton Theatre London on May 18, 2004, and subsequently prented on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on April 23, 2006, Alan Bent’s The History Boys subtly explored gay them s pictn of life among an unly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form (senr) boys a Brish boardg school 1983. A kaleidospe that ternnects to portray growg up gay and black, Bootyndy tells the story of Sutter, who is on an outrageo odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms, and even nursg hom. 2013: Fun Home Mic by Jeane Tori / Book & Lyrics by Lisa Kron(Full-Length Mil, Drama / 4f, 2m, 1 girl, 2 boys) Nearly a half-century after the birth of the morn gay rights movement, Broadway fally weled s first mil wh a lbian protagonist.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

In s portra of a lbian artist and her memori of her closeted gay father, the groundbreakg work brilliantly and heartbreakgly picted, the microsm of one fay, the ntrast of generatnal experienc the LGBTQ+ muny. 2015: Perfect Arrangement by Topher Payne(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 4f, 3m)Inspired by the te story of the earlit stirrgs of the gay rights movement, Perfect Arrangement merg madp s-style lghs wh provotive drama as two closeted U.