Some Men

I can picture Terrence McNally, perhaps leaning back in his chair with crossed legs, feet up on his writing desk, his hands behind his head, and a cup of lukewarm coffee (ignored) at his side. He’s deep in the middle of whipping off an essay about the history of active social-homosexuality in New York City during his lifetime. Being a playwright, Mr. McNally instinctively shapes this essay into the form of a play but he has gotten stuck in a morass of gay clichés and he doesn’t seem to have a hook to get out of it. So, let’s see (he thinks), reaching for his coffee and his muse, what is the most outrageous cliché I can use to bring this thing down to earth? Ah, ha! (a voila moment), how about a tipsy drag queen in a gay piano bar in the late 60’s singing Over the Rainbow? Hmm…that might work. And you know what? In his new play Some Men, it does! And it’s not just a snippet of the song, Mr. McNally and the director Trip Cullman audaciously has her (the wonderful David Greenspan) sing the entire song, every word, top to bottom, sweetly and to the point, without gesture or grandiosity and just good enough to not only bring down the house in the bar where she’s singing but also the real thing, us, and we recognize the fact that the actor is not trying to do a Garland impression, he’s letting “Roxie” do her best for herself, not for the boys in the bar or even us. It’s a point well made, that is, what stuff like this really meant in “those days,” to have some sort of positive gay anthem to cling to. It was important as a symbol and it’s wonderful McNally has the chutzpah to plunk it down in the middle of his play. It just goes to prove that in context clichés can often work.

Some Men is, admittedly, one huge cliché but McNally lets us in on the joke…it’s deliberate and therefore informative and moving. History, as told through the prism of the silly and mundane, is still history and McNally illustrates this with finesse and a good deal of wise cynicism. Gay marriage and adoption and the inanities and chicaneries of internet cruising and dating (LOL) will no doubt be the clichés of tomorrow and they are also given their due in this play.

Although not a musical Some Men nonetheless has two zowie numbers that, in context, bring down the house. First, the aforementioned Rainbow and then as a second act curtain raiser a fascinating performance by Michael McElroy of an oral history told by a black entertainer at a Cotton Club-like establishment in Harlem, circa 1930, framed by the singing of Ten Cents A Dance. He tells the story of his liaison with the lyricist of the song without naming names. Of course, being Google-literate in spite of myself, when I got home the mystery got solved and Lorenz Hart (of Rodgers and Hart fame) gets outed in the privacy of my bedroom…and in reading his biography it’s clear that this liaison actually could have happened, but I leave it to Mr. McNally to prove it one way or another. Anyway, Mr. McElroy kills with this powerful, sad song and you hate it when it’s over; you could ride that wave forever.

In sum, I thought Some Men was wonderful and every member of the cast was right on. Besides Mr. Greenspan and Mr. McElroy, they are Don Amendolia, Kelly AuCoin, Romain Fruge, Jesse Hooker, Pedro Pascal, Randy Redd and Frederick Weller. These are some fine actors.

There’s a scene late in the play where two aggressive and confident (and out) young men are interviewing an older male couple about what happened during “those” years. Clueless when they started the interview and disappointed and still clueless about what they had just learned, the young men rush off, not in pursuit of the truth but for what they perceive should be the truth and, of course, a good grade in their class in “gender studies” at Vassar. My advice to them would be to see this play. They might learn something but I doubt they would ever consider such research as being relevant. You only have to take a look around the audience at this performance. Some fine examples of the subjects of their study were much in evidence, but their own generation had no counterparts.

I’ve made this comment before about theater-going attendance in general. Last night’s audience, on average, was easily sliding into their 40’s and 50’s and older. Luckily we are still young enough to fill the (relatively small) house for a wonderful play like this but, well, you know…oh hell, I’ll stop there…I’m not about to get into a discussion of mortality; either off-Broadway or on. I’m just glad I have the privilege to get in on these current “good old days” before they are gone forever into the abyss of whatever popular entertainment takes its place in about 25 years. I’m not sure if I can ever be a fan of Holograms R Us.