Broadway's Gay Stereotyp Are an Insult to Theater Kids Everywhere

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Rob Madge’s quirky celebratn of a happy gay childhood has been a grassroots succs. In 2023 transfers to the Ambassadors Theatre the Wt End

Contents:

1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER

IF “GAY THEATER” is fed as beg by, for, and about uncloseted gay people, then 2014 arguably marks the 50th anniversary of the genre’s existence. * gay theatre kid *

Degrassi: Next Generatn Seasons 2–7When Degrassi: The Next Generatn premiered s send season, Mar Del Rossi, played by Adamo Ruggiero, found a home and a place Degrassi history wh his role as a gay stunt who practilly went through all durg his time on the gay kids high school were fodr for bullyg, Mar found an dience through an accurate portrayal that allowed him to live a pretty normal teenage life, for Degrassi standards at Degrassi High, he found love Paige's hockey player brother, helped his iends e to terms wh their gay bt iend, and a b of everythg else that wh beg a Degrassi stunt.

Degrassi: Next Generatn Seasons 11–14 and Degrassi: Next Class 1–4For the gay kid at Degrassi, life n be tough, but Tristan, played by Lyle Lett, he at least ma his time heart attacks, anorexia, fights wh his BFF, sleepg wh a teacher, and so much more, Tristan ma his mark on the screen and the halls of Degrassi ways so few have before. Degrassi: Next Class 3–4The first gay Mlim character on the show, Rasha, played by Dalia Yegavian, gave the show a morn update while portrayg a young Mlim immigrant tryg to fd herself (like everyone at Degrassi, all the time) end up datg Zoe Rivas, another queer woman of lor, durg her last seasons on the show. In 1964, spe a social climate of homophobia that pervad Amerin life for the send third of the 20th century, two one-act plays prented Off-Off-Broadway at the Caffe Co revolutnized how gay characters uld be reprented theatrilly.

Satirized the trial of Osr Wil sympathetilly), the Wilson and Patrick one-acts were unique that both featured gay characters set the prent time who were not only open, but boisteroly fiant. We uldn’t jt log on to the ter or turn on the televisn to fd reprentatns of ourselv, we had to triangulate and hypothize om half-hts and sual pretory remarks by New York wrers about Greenwich Village parti and ffeeho that wh an only half-discerned arty Bohemian environment there might possibly be a ltle more acceptance of homosexuals.

CHILD STAR STGGLED TO E OUT AFTER PLAYG ‘THE GAY KID’ ‘SCHOOL OF ROCK’

In the first half of the 20th century, you uld be arrted for stagg a gay play. Theatr uld be packed and shows sold out, but that wouldn’t stop them om beg shut down for "obscene" ntent. * gay theatre kid *

In tanm wh the work of activist polil groups, which had begun anizg the late 1950s, the wrers at the Caffe Co—wh their wild talents for turng fantasy to theatril realy for their untercultural dienc—metaphorilly gave birth to the ncept of “gay liberatn.

In this way, they ed the stage to shape public disurse, and the muni that rulted n perhaps be scribed as direct precsors of the Gay Liberatn Front and Gay Activist Alliance.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS

Time Out's gui to the bt LGBTQ+ theatre shows across London. Coverg everythg om lbian drama to queer baret to gay theatre classics, here's where to fd the latt LGBTQ+ shows across the cy. * gay theatre kid *

(In fact, Doric Wilson, perhaps the first playwright of the “Gay Theater” movement at the Co, was also a pneer of gay polil activism: he participated both the GLF and s scennt, the GAA. LANFORD WILSON and Robert Patrick were not unaware that their impulse to wre plays about openly gay characters was chartg new terrory, as wns Wilson’s “thor not” to “The Madns of Lady Bright”: “I believe the ia of the play shocked me. Openg on December 6, 1964, only a few months after “The Madns of Lady Bright, ” “The Hnted Host” has as s protagonist one Jay, a wildly funny gay playwright who has recently lost his lover Ed to suici.

Envisng an alternative endg for the tragic queen archetype, the play enacts a crique of homosexual inti by offerg a visn which the stereotypil power dynamic between the gay man and the straight man is verted.

By reversg the prumptn of heterosexualy as origal tth, and puttg the “straight man” a posn which he mt expla his “foreign” sexualy to a gay man, the playwright language to unrme the heterosexist perceptn of realy.

NEW GAY THEATER HAS MORE LOVE THAN POLICS

In September, genr-bendg queer performer Mykki Blan exprsed anger at Brney Spears for palisg on her gay fanbase wh her sgle "Work Bch." She tweeted that the song wasn't "gay pri," but rather "gay marketg," a necsary… * gay theatre kid *

Patrick’s queer theater ntributed to a nascent sense of “gay liberatn” by promotg visibily, stabilizg normative social nstcts, providg a template for dividual self-empowerment, and exposg opprsn. An ephemeral utopia for Patrick and his iends, the Co was neverthels a place where numero relatnships were built, and where gay artists uld fd the mararie that affirmed their mon terts, perspectiv, and sexual sir. Here are ten of the plays that have ntributed to LGBTQ+ theatre's rich Drag by Mae WtThe Drag follows Rolly, a gay man who marri a woman to hi his sexualy, and the nsequenc of this.

BROADWAY'S GAY STEREOTYP ARE AN INSULT TO THEATER KIDS EVERYWHERE

* gay theatre kid *

Wh a st of exclively gay actors om a Greenwich Village club, the play was a huge fancial succs, but was wily panned by crics and shut down due to obsceny laws and never ma to Broadway as planned. It is by no means as ntroversial as many plays wh central male gay them, but has to work doubly hard bee of this lack of other lbian storyl on the stage, somethg that is dire need of changg and that Fun Home self uld In Ameri by Tony Khner The exploratn of AIDS 1980s Ameri an epic unrtakg, and Angels Ameri is a suably epic play. Hot on the heels of the Angels Ameri revival, Matthew Lopez asks what is like for the next generatn of young gay men New York, growg up and livg the shadow of the AIDS crisis.

Frozen, particular, centers around Elsa, who has bee a queer in regardls of the stud's msagg, but Disney champned the apparent homosexualy of Oaken, the Tradg Post owner. Some people still wrongly believe that queerns means more about viant sexual activy than do about healthy sexualy and inty, and they worry that 's dangero for their children to be exposed to gay, lbian, or transgenr characters fictn meant for all or younger dienc.

MATTHEW LOPEZ'S GAY NEW YORK EPIC THE INHERANCE – PICTUR

Former child actor Brian Falduto says that he wasn’t able to e out until his senr year of llege bee of the stggl he faced after beg dubbed “the gay kid” om “School of Rock. “I was so much nial [about my sexualy growg up], ” he said on the “Cooper and Anthony Show, ” “Thk about : I was the fifth gra when this movie me out and I was lled gay, and then someone told me that’s not ol, so I was jt like, ‘Oh, ok, then I’m not gay’.

“So by the time I realized I was potentially gay, I was already homophobic towards myself, sentially, ” Falduto, who is now an actor, filmmaker, mician and life ach said.

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. Nor do homosexuals suffer om an “emotnal-psychologil illns, ” as he sually mentns — for this was an era which such public slurs were chic and permissible, pecially the guise of lerary cricism.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* GAY THEATRE KID

bars</tle><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_65hRV2Qwn" class="css-1fxvzwo" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_ILVvi2tqx" class="css-1wnday1" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC"><rect x="34" width="6" height="36" id="el_qw_T_tngXw"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_p_9Pm85Ac" class="css-fwki7z" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_WxG3R40yd" class="css-t3i5e6" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU"><rect x="22.67" width="6" height="36" id="el_lf9GrROk6j"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_kYNRGDfcw" class="css-t9te0w" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_3c3bzSjOJ" class="css-1r5375t" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw"><rect x="11.33" width="6" height="36" id="el_-iueO8klO0"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_y_fKcpSxn" class="css-qknaag" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_R6bNB6_Ys" class="css-1vd04" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC"><rect width="6" height="36" id="el_dS5TKNZZ5w"></rect></g></g></g></svg></div><div><div class="css-1t7yl1y">0:00<!-- -->/<!-- -->1:23</div><div class="css-og85jy">-<!-- -->0:00</div></div></div></div></hear><div class="css-uzyn7p"><div class="css-1vxyw"><p class="css-1nng8z9">transcript</p><h2 class="css-9wqu2x">Read T a Poem | Michael Benjam Washgton</h2><h4 class="css-qsd3hm">The actor reads "The Unsung" by Keenan Teddy Smh.</h4></div><dl class="css-p98d0w"><dt class="css-xx7kwh"></dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">For the Old Port built and built aga: I am sure you are different to me. We are k, though; we are both refuge and warmth, petn and hope, nnected by seas. your boats here are plentiful, but your huddled mass are greater; I feel no one sgs the songs of our kd anymore, no one not our role safe passage. Five me if I’ve been too vted, too ialistic about our sisterhood. Perhaps ’s our shared brownns, our shared tis, our shared rilience agast time and the ficklens of men that ma so nnected as if I uld leap om notre dame and scend to wh love, our songs and sorrows guidg me over rooftops and fé smoke plum. Unsung sats, lyg open for the world, if the lost and found won’t buttrs wh honor, we shall always hold each other.</p></dd></dl></div></div></div></div><script type="applitn/ld+json">{"@ntext":","@type":"VioObject","@id":","scriptn":"The actor reads \"The Unsung\" by Keenan Teddy Smh.","url":","name":"Read T a Poem | Michael Benjam Washgton","thumbnailUrl":[",","],"embedUrl":","ntentUrl":","uploadDate":"2018-02-26T05:05:13.000Z","transcript":"For the Old Port built and built aga: I am sure you are different to me. We are k, though; we are both refuge and warmth, petn and hope, nnected by seas. your boats here are plentiful, but your huddled mass are greater; I feel no one sgs the songs of our kd anymore, no one not our role safe passage. Five me if I’ve been too vted, too ialistic about our sisterhood. Perhaps ’s our shared brownns, our shared tis, our shared rilience agast time and the ficklens of men that ma so nnected as if I uld leap om notre dame and scend to wh love, our songs and sorrows guidg me over rooftops and fé smoke plum. Unsung sats, lyg open for the world, if the lost and found won’t buttrs wh honor, we shall always hold each other.","duratn":"PT1M23.709S"}</script></div><div class="css-1cueeje" style="paddg-bottom:56.25%;transn:opacy 300ms ease--out"><div class="css-1ihorw"><img src=" alt="Vio player loadg"/></div><div class="css-ew1078"><div class="css-ptry2i"><div></div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><figptn class="css-1ifea e1maroi60"><span class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">The actor reads "The Unsung" by Keenan Teddy Smh.</span><span class="css-cch8ym"><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Cred</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span>Brendan Stumpf</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">There’s an irony this, as the same quali that ma those classics classic also ma them, their origal ns, almost impossible to stage. No one wanted to touch “The Boys the Band” at first: no producers, no theater owners, no actors. When Luckbill, then 33, agreed to play Hank — the “straightt” of the gay men, who’d left his wife and children — his agent said he might as well bid goodbye to his reer. She was, md you, the play’s agent too, a lbian herself. But so heavy and lgerg was the perfume of gayns g off the project that even a heterosexual actor like Luckbill was thought to be mtg theatril suici to book . Mostly out of iendship for Crowley, a llege chum, he did.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Luckbill went on to have a very full reer onstage and on screen — and so, to everyone’s surprise, did “The Boys the Band.” As the sixth-row prence of Jackie and Groucho suggts, crossed over to mastream awarens and even found succs, nng for 1,001 performanc. William Friedk’s fahful <a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">movie versn</a>, released 1970 and starrg the entire stage st, turned to a touchstone of gay style and sufferg for gays and straights well beyond New York. As such, is whout doubt the first play the Amerin gay male theatril non.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">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 1958.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But 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. If you doubt , look at the nam volved the 50th-anniversary revival: Jim Parsons plays the party’s host, Michael; Matt Bomer is Donald, Michael’s ambivalent ex; Zachary Quto is Harold, the “ugly pockmarked Jew fairy” birthday boy; and Andrew Rannells is Larry, one half of the play’s only tablished (if iffy) uple. 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 Mantello.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">This was a liberate statement, meant to acknowledge how far the world has e sce 1968. “The guys that are the leads,” Murphy says, “are the first generatn of <a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">gay actors</a> who said, ‘We’re gog to live thentic liv and hope and pray our reers rema on track’ — and they have. I fd that profound.”</p><div class="css-79elbk" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper"><div class="css-z3e15g" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper-hidn"></div><div data-ttid="photoviewer-children" class="css-1a48zt4 e11si9ry5"><figure class="img-sz-small css-nss59b e1g7ppur0" aria-label="media" role="group"><div class="css-zgakxe erfvjey0"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="css-nwd8t8" data-ttid="lazy-image"><div data-ttid="lazyimage-ntaer" style="height:247.46666666666667px"></div></div></div><figptn class="css-1ybnr6m ewdxa0s0"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">A still om the set of William Friedk’s 1970 film versn of “The Boys the Band,” which starred the entire theatril st.</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span><span aria-hidn="false">Mptv Imag</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div></div><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Crowley uld never have predicted that. In 1968 he sent his play to a world that, however much might lgh at his gay zgers, seemed likely to rema forever and fundamentally hostile. Mantello pots out the startlg paradox that all the gay members of the origal pany felt pelled to stay the closet “even though they were a groundbreakg play about gay men.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But the way the world se gay people and the way gay people see themselv have changed so much, and of late so fast, that plays om even jt a few years ago n seem like Ken Burns documentari. In one sense, then, the classic gay plays are tnal: remdg a placent generatn of the stggl and tragedi (and fabulons) that unrlie the glossy image of rapid progrs. The normalizatn of gayns that has most ways been a boon has also shnk the historil eye to, well, another peephole. Further progrs, much need, requir a fuller view. And who’s to say the momento chang of the last 50 years n’t be swiftly undone?</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The Boys the Band” helped ce those chang, allowg for s reappearance now as a triumph of liberatn stead of an embarrassment to the liberators. The mistake the play’s many gay crics have ma is thkg that transformative art should be a form of boosterism. Rather, transformative art is needlg, Cassandra-like, tellg unfortable tths you ignore at your peril. “The Boys the Band,” once seen, uldn’t be unseen. “The people who cricize the play have the luxury to do so <em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">bee</em> of the play,” Mantello says.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Ined, part of the reason “The Boys the Band” so clearly marks the start of the non is the way was swallowed up almost stantly by what helped to spawn. 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. Even Albee, who Crowley spects vted secretly the origal productn, once tarred the play as “a highly skillful work that I spised” bee “did ser damage to a burgeong gay rpectabily movement.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Were there not nelli at Stonewall? In any se, when rpectabily me, me at an awful price. AIDS, which drove the last nail the play’s reputatnal ff, also killed off most of s st. Between 1984 and 1993, five of the gay men the origal productn, as well as the director, Robert Moore, and the producer, Richard Barr, died of the disease.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div><div class="css-79elbk" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper"><div class="css-z3e15g" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper-hidn"></div><div data-ttid="photoviewer-children" class="css-1a48zt4 e11si9ry5"><figure class="img-sz-full css-1kwayi3 e1g7ppur0" aria-label="media" role="group"><div class="css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="css-nwd8t8" data-ttid="lazy-image"><div data-ttid="lazyimage-ntaer" style="height:257.77777777777777px"></div></div></div><figptn class="css-o5l7z4 ewdxa0s0"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">From left: Rannells. Watks. Actor ZACHARY QUINTO a Salvatore Ferragamo at, price on requt. Actor MATT BOMER a Sat Lrent by Anthony Vacrello jacket, $4,890, <a href="></a>, Ermenegildo Zegna polo, $565, (212) 421-4488, and Mr P. pants, $250, <a href="></a>. Actor CHARLIE CARVER a vtage Lee jacket, Office Générale T-shirt, $117, and Simon Miller jeans, $375, <a href="></a>.</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span><span aria-hidn="false">Photograph by Inez and Voodh. Styled by Jay Massacret</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div></div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><h3 class="css-emk09r e1gnsphs0" id="lk-4af067d1"><span>Act II. The Canon</span></h3><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">AND YET AIDS, wh s gdy ironi, would create the ndns that turned a “rpectabily movement” to a civil rights revolutn. It would also create the ndns that produced — even necsated — most of the disputably nonil gay plays that succeed “The Boys the Band.” Bee both the disease and the revolutn were centered New York, the untry’s theatril pal, mak sense that those plays are all set the cy. And bee I’m wrg about plays that have shaped gay male life, ’s not surprisg that all the playwrights I name are gay men.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It hardly needs argug that one of them is Tony Khner, whose play “Angels Ameri: A Gay Fantasia on Natnal Them,” <a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">opened on Broadway</a> 1993. A revival, starrg Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield, opens on March 25 — but unlike “The Boys the Band,” “Angels” never really went away, never suffered a Siberian holiday of polil retn. Perhaps that’s bee Khner, puttg so much to , ensured would always have somethg to put out. If you don’t like the story of fahls Louis leavg his lover, Prr, who velops AIDS, there’s the one about the closeted lawyer (and Tmp fixer) Roy Cohn, nyg the disease outright. Or perhaps you prefer somethg more aerontil? There’s one of those tle angels for that, bearg a cryptic missn for mankd. Pl a heroic drag queen, a dg-addled wife, rabbis, Mormons and Ethel Rosenberg.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It’s what I ll a goulash work, though Khner prefers the term lasagna: a dish that almost melts the borrs of form s qut for sublimy. It is also, s more timate scen, so funny and argumentative, so vatic, so sharp and so unncerned wh gay rpectabily that you n see a straight le leadg back to “The Boys the Band.” Both plays, after all, are about closet s and fily and gay men takg re of one another — or not.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">I retract the “straight le,” though; more aptly, ’s a bent one, passg through other nonil plays, each ntributg an element of style or stagecraft along the way. In the 25 years between “The Boys the Band” and “Angels Ameri” there are two, or possibly three, by my acuntg. The two are Harvey Fierste’s “Torch Song Trilogy,” a llectn of three related one-act plays first seen on Broadway 1982, and Larry Kramer’s “<a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">The Normal Heart</a>,” om 1985. The third is Pl Rudnick’s “<a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">Jefey</a>,” which — a 1992 replay of Crowley’s 1968 experience — uld not at first fd a producer, a theater or a st.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div><figure class="sizeMedium css-sx232s" aria-label="media" role="group" data-ttid="VioBlock"><div class="css-1xb94ky"><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Vio</span><div><div class="css-n27z15" style="paddg-bottom:56.25%"><div class="css-mm3pwi"><div class="css-1g7y0i5 e1drnplw0"><button tabx="100" class="css-1rtlxy" type="button" aria-label="close"><svg width="60" height="60" viewBox="0 0 60 60" fill="none"><circle cx="30" cy="30" r="30" fill="whe" fill-opacy="0.9"></circle><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M38.4844 20.1006L39.8986 21.5148L21.5138 39.8996L20.0996 38.4854L38.4844 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M21.5156 20.1006L20.1014 21.5148L38.4862 39.8996L39.9004 38.4854L21.5156 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path></svg></button><div class="css-rdbib0 e1drnplw1"></div><div class="css-18ow4sz e1drnplw2"><div aria-labelledby="modal-tle" role="regn"><hear class="css-1bzlfz"><div class="css-mln36k" id="modal-tle">transcript</div><button type="button" class="css-1igvuto"><div class="css-f40pzg"></div><span>Back</span></button><div class="css-f6lhej" data-ttid="transcript-playback-ntrols"><div class="css-1ialerq"><button tabx="99" type="button" class="css-1t9gw" aria-label="play"><svg xmlns=" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M8 13.7683V6L14.5 9.88415L8 13.7683Z" fill="var(--lor-ntent-sendary,#363636)"></path><circle cx="10" cy="10" r="9.25" stroke="var(--lor-stroke-primary,#121212)" stroke-width="1.5"></circle></svg></button><div class="css-1701swk"><svg xmlns=" viewBox="0 0 40 36" id="el_0kpS9qL_S"><tle>bars</tle><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_65hRV2Qwn" class="css-1fxvzwo" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_ILVvi2tqx" class="css-1wnday1" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC"><rect x="34" width="6" height="36" id="el_qw_T_tngXw"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_p_9Pm85Ac" class="css-fwki7z" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_WxG3R40yd" class="css-t3i5e6" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU"><rect x="22.67" width="6" height="36" id="el_lf9GrROk6j"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_kYNRGDfcw" class="css-t9te0w" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_3c3bzSjOJ" class="css-1r5375t" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw"><rect x="11.33" width="6" height="36" id="el_-iueO8klO0"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_y_fKcpSxn" class="css-qknaag" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_R6bNB6_Ys" class="css-1vd04" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC"><rect width="6" height="36" id="el_dS5TKNZZ5w"></rect></g></g></g></svg></div><div><div class="css-1t7yl1y">0:00<!-- -->/<!-- -->0:56</div><div class="css-og85jy">-<!-- -->0:00</div></div></div></div></hear><div class="css-uzyn7p"><div class="css-1vxyw"><p class="css-1nng8z9">transcript</p><h2 class="css-9wqu2x">Read T a Poem | Joe Mantello</h2><h4 class="css-qsd3hm">The director reads "Morng Scene" by Jamon Fzpatrick.</h4></div><dl class="css-p98d0w"><dt class="css-xx7kwh"></dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oppose him at this table aga and through the wdows the cy glterg, surreal as a sle mol, the cy miature – only mov a real way, bee is real. One of the wdows is open, some nstctn down on the street dron like a distant vacuum. It’s warm for January. Still his apartment has that dreamlike qualy of feelg like home though I know ’s not. Not me anymore – but how many people get to vis the past whout hurtg anythg? To e back and drk the same ffee om the same never-que-clean cup.</p></dd></dl></div></div></div></div><script type="applitn/ld+json">{"@ntext":","@type":"VioObject","@id":","scriptn":"The director reads \"Morng Scene\" by Jamon Fzpatrick.","url":","name":"Read T a Poem | Joe Mantello","thumbnailUrl":[",","],"embedUrl":","ntentUrl":","uploadDate":"2018-02-26T05:05:19.000Z","transcript":"Oppose him at this table aga and through the wdows the cy glterg, surreal as a sle mol, the cy miature – only mov a real way, bee is real. One of the wdows is open, some nstctn down on the street dron like a distant vacuum. It’s warm for January. Still his apartment has that dreamlike qualy of feelg like home though I know ’s not. Not me anymore – but how many people get to vis the past whout hurtg anythg? To e back and drk the same ffee om the same never-que-clean cup.","duratn":"PT56.682S"}</script></div><div class="css-1cueeje" style="paddg-bottom:56.25%;transn:opacy 300ms ease--out"><div class="css-1ihorw"><img src=" alt="Vio player loadg"/></div><div class="css-ew1078"><div class="css-ptry2i"><div></div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><figptn class="css-1ifea e1maroi60"><span class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">The director reads "Morng Scene" by Jamon Fzpatrick.</span><span class="css-cch8ym"><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Cred</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span>Brendan Stumpf</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">What mak “Jefey” jt a possible third? It’s a edy, and edi, short of Shakpeare’s or Wil’s, are unstable. Over time, they seem to pose more easily than dramas, revealg off flavors. Te, “Jefey” is not an ordary edy; ’s a edy about AIDS, and a romantic edy at that — a genre that shouldn’t have been possible, and wasn’t until Rudnick cid was need. “Comedy is often the only feasible antidote to a pletely jtifiable, but not very entertag hopelsns,” he once wrote. “Sometim, a wisecrack is a weapon.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">So “Jefey,” which ran for two years Off Broadway and was ma to a movie 1995, is crafted like a drama, squeezg patible thgs together a small space and forcg them to lli. But bee Rudnick’s characters — an terr rator, a bartenr, a chos boy “Cats” — are profsnally amg, so is the rult. Jefey himself is a gay ter-waer his 30s who, rather than worry about what is safe, cis to rema celibate forever. Everyone around him is horrified at this “one real blasphemy — the refal of joy,” even as one of his iends is dyg. “How dare you give up sex,” says a prit, “when there are children Europe who n’t get a date!”</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Jefey” is full of merriment but you always unrstand that the domtic problems faced by upl straight romantic edi have here been raised to an existential plane. “If you want edi to be really funny you have to have the biggt possible obstacl,” Rudnick says. “And that’s what AIDS hand me and everyone else.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In a way, then, “Jefey” is the verse of Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” and a ccial unterweight to . When “The Normal Heart” opened at the Public Theater jt four years after the first reports of what would soon be lled AIDS, felt ls like a play than like war reportg. Kramer was nothg if not embedd; this was his own story, lightly fictnalized the character of Ned Weeks and happeng real time. 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 state.</p><div class="css-79elbk" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper"><div class="css-z3e15g" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper-hidn"></div><div data-ttid="photoviewer-children" class="css-1a48zt4 e11si9ry5"><figure class="img-sz-small css-nss59b e1g7ppur0" aria-label="media" role="group"><div class="css-zgakxe erfvjey0"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="css-nwd8t8" data-ttid="lazy-image"><div data-ttid="lazyimage-ntaer" style="height:311.9111111111111px"></div></div></div><figptn class="css-1ybnr6m ewdxa0s0"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">Actors on stage at Theater Four New York cir 1969.</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span><span aria-hidn="false">Photo by Martha Swope / the New York Public Library</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div></div><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The 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. But Kramer was also battlg the gay theatril tradn, which he saw, even before AIDS, as petty, artificial and sufficiently polil. (He cricized “The Boys the Band” for s “ternalized homophobia.”) “The Normal Heart” is a fierce rrective to those perceived flts, but ’s not merely the rant some people remember. The story of Ned’s public efforts is mirrored his private effort to save his lover, Felix, a closeted New York Tim wrer dyg of AIDS. The play ends wh their “marriage” at Felix’s athbed — a marriage quot bee wouldn’t have been legal New York for another quarter century.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The Normal Heart” is nonil not jt for s anger and prcience, though the should be enough to nonize Kramer. The play saved liv, srg s dienc to realy a way that the vague public-health rmatn of the time utterly failed to do. It also reamed the way we would forever look at gay men and gay theater. That did not mean abjurg love as a subject, but rather ennoblg while unrstandg s limatns. Hence the tle, taken om a passage Aun’s poem “September 1, 1939” about the “error bred the bone / Of each woman and each man.” That error is much adlier than mere disease. It is the impossible cravg of the “normal heart”: “Not universal love / But to be loved alone.”</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Aun, a poet, shows the driv as divergent; Kramer, a dramatist, looks at how they nverge. For him as for most playwrights, the njot them of society and self — twed an embrace that is timate yet suffotg — are the basis of all great theater. Whout the “self” part, a play is rarely engagg. Whout the “society” part, is (no matter how engagg) nsequential.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">That’s why my non starts when do. For gay playwrights wrg before 1960, the lk between self and society was severed by homophobia: The self uld not engage openly wh society, or not, at least, <em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0"> ont of</em> society. Which don’t mean there were no great plays wh gay characters by gay playwrights: Look aga at “The Glass Menagerie.” Tom — as the performanc by Quto and Mantello the two most recent Broadway revivals make pla — n only be unrstood as a furtive homosexual. But Tom’s crypto-proto-gayns don’t make “The Glass Menagerie” a gay play; ’s merely a great one.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Turns out those celebri slummg at “The Boys the Band” mattered. Jt as whe bons vivants had been cultivatg (some might say appropriatg) black Harlem for generatns, the straights and A-listers headg to Theater Four their limos helped rry the news, like a vis, back wh them. I don’t mean to be snarky; this was not always a cultural safari, a hunt for the most exotic new trophi. Some me to learn, to be changed. And yet one of the thgs “The Boys the Band” (and the other plays I’m wrg about) did was to show nongay dienc jt how gay their liv already were. Their sufferg, their hubris, their sens of humor were more faiar than not. Who, after all, had been dog their hair?</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div><figure class="sizeMedium css-sx232s" aria-label="media" role="group" data-ttid="VioBlock"><div class="css-1xb94ky"><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Vio</span><div><div class="css-n27z15" style="paddg-bottom:56.25%"><div class="css-mm3pwi"><div class="css-1g7y0i5 e1drnplw0"><button tabx="100" class="css-1rtlxy" type="button" aria-label="close"><svg width="60" height="60" viewBox="0 0 60 60" fill="none"><circle cx="30" cy="30" r="30" fill="whe" fill-opacy="0.9"></circle><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M38.4844 20.1006L39.8986 21.5148L21.5138 39.8996L20.0996 38.4854L38.4844 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M21.5156 20.1006L20.1014 21.5148L38.4862 39.8996L39.9004 38.4854L21.5156 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path></svg></button><div class="css-rdbib0 e1drnplw1"></div><div class="css-18ow4sz e1drnplw2"><div aria-labelledby="modal-tle" role="regn"><hear class="css-1bzlfz"><div class="css-mln36k" id="modal-tle">transcript</div><button type="button" class="css-1igvuto"><div class="css-f40pzg"></div><span>Back</span></button><div class="css-f6lhej" data-ttid="transcript-playback-ntrols"><div class="css-1ialerq"><button tabx="99" type="button" class="css-1t9gw" aria-label="play"><svg xmlns=" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M8 13.7683V6L14.5 9.88415L8 13.7683Z" fill="var(--lor-ntent-sendary,#363636)"></path><circle cx="10" cy="10" r="9.25" stroke="var(--lor-stroke-primary,#121212)" stroke-width="1.5"></circle></svg></button><div class="css-1701swk"><svg xmlns=" viewBox="0 0 40 36" id="el_0kpS9qL_S"><tle>bars .

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