Review: 1968 play, `The Boys in the Band,' anything but dated
From left, Nigel Revenge and Andy Herrmann are featured in Rising Action Theatre's "The Boys in the Band."
BY CHRISTINE DOLEN
CDOLEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band is set in a time before cellphones, before gay marriage, before AIDS, before that soul-baring ``game'' known as truth-or-dare. In its specifics, the 1968 play is a period piece. Yet on an emotional level, Boys is anything but dated.
Newly revived at Fort Lauderdale's Rising Action Theatre, the play gets a tart, extravagantly funny, pain-filled production, thanks to director Michael Leeds and his gift for drawing effective performances from a large cast with varying abilities and backgrounds. Each actor gets a moment, or many, to shine. And thanks to Leeds, most capitalize on their time in the spotlight.
The galvanizing event in The Boys in the Band is a gay birthday party from hell at the New York apartment of Michael (Andy Herrmann), a guy whose sobriety is both recent and tenuous. Birthday boy Harold (Sam Sherburne) is Michael's match, and then some, in eviscerating wit. During the course of a turbulent evening, each of the men -- including Michael's straight college pal Alan (Alan Saban), who represents the judgmental world outside his old friend's door -- gets pushed to an emotionally raw place.
As gay life and culture evolved in the years after The Boys in the Band debuted, the play came in for some justifiable criticism over its perpetuation of stereotypes.
Emory (the very funny Christopher Michaels), for example, is a flamboyantly campy guy who refers to the other guests as ``she'' or ``Mary,'' and who jokingly treats his black friend Bernard (Johnnie Bowls) like a house servant from Gone With the Wind. ``Cowboy'' (Brandon St. John), Harold's birthday ``gift'' from Emory, is the quintessential dumb blond hustler. Hank (Angel Perez), a teacher who left his wife and kids, is at war with his promiscuous lover Larry (Manuel Uriza) over the monogamy that only Hank wants. And Michael's sometimes lover Donald (Nigel Revenge) is hiding out in the 'burbs, choosing to work in a menial job, disengaging from the pace and pressures of an out life in the city.
Still, despite whatever type each character represents, director Leeds helps his actors explore the play's moment-to-moment truths.
There are, however, some missteps in both the physical production and in certain acting choices. Set designer Jonathan Jones' flashy rendition of Michael's '60s crib, for instance, requires the actors to ascend a little staircase, then appear through an exit at one side of the stage, crossing between the stage and audience to enter Michael's ``upstairs'' bedroom. Awkward.
Just as awkward is the moment when, as other characters are speaking, Cowboy tenderly caresses Harold's thigh, then gets a few back-at-ya pats on his pretty blond head. Whatever the fleeting relationship between birthday boy and his for-rent buckaroo might be, sweetness isn't a believable part of the equation.
Christine Dolen is The Miami Herald's theater critic.
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