{"id":3366,"date":"2011-10-01T16:00:48","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T23:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/?p=3366"},"modified":"2011-10-06T08:46:55","modified_gmt":"2011-10-06T15:46:55","slug":"next-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/2011\/10\/next-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Next Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Play (2010)
\nBy Geoffrey Nauffts
\nDirected by Scott Edmiston<\/p>\n

Speakeasy Stage Company<\/a>
\nBoston, MA<\/p>\n

September 16 – October 15, 2011<\/p>\n

With Will McGarrahan (Adam), Dan Roach (Luke), Amelia Broome (Arlene), Robert Walsh (Butch), Deb Martin (Holly), Kevin Kaine (Brandon).<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Solitary<\/a><\/p>\n

A heartfelt, dramatic yet entertaining, treatment of a gay couple with a difference of age and of religious outlook. A critical event brings friends and family together; a series of flashbacks leads to the sources of the various outpourings.<\/strong><\/div>\n

At the opening, we encounter a group of people in a room, talking. They refer to someone who is absent from the group; it is not clear until a little while later where they are or why they are there. <\/p>\n

A series of flashbacks follows: Adam (Will McGarrahan) meets Luke (Dan Roach) and they begin to live together in New York. Luke is from a traditional, and characterologically complex, household in the South; his parents do not know he is gay or that he lives with Adam. To boot, Luke is an observant Christian and Adam is very much not observant at all. Their difference of religious outlook is a source of divisiveness, but they love one another and continue along nonetheless. <\/p>\n

In that opening scene, we encounter Luke’s parents, Arlene (Amelia Broome) and Butch (Robert Walsh), some of whose own colorful, and difficult, history gets told as the play develops. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, the stark evolution of the drama which unfolds fulfills the tension embodied by the differences of background and of religious and sexual orientation.<\/p>\n

Next Fall<\/em> is set in present day New York, but the somewhat challenging presumption is that Luke cannot confront his parents with the fact he is gay. Though Luke is quite self assured in many ways and has lived with Adam for four years, he keeps putting off telling them, claiming eponymously that he plans to do it “next fall.” As the narrative develops, this scheduling does not turn out to be a very effective strategy.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a><\/p>\n

Clearly, Luke had a complicated childhood in a household that combined traditionalism with transgression; his parents faced their own demons and seemed unable to shake them for a long time. <\/p>\n

So why is Luke a religious Christian? It is not so clear whether he has inherited his faith from childhood or whether he adopted it as a way of saving himself from the chaotic backwaters of his upbringing. We never really find out. <\/p>\n

Nor do we find out why this young man has adopted a form of faith that seems inimical to his sexual orientation. After all, this is a young, gay man in contemporary New York, and he appears to have chosen a form of Christianity with intolerant attitudes about homosexuality; there are sects with more accepting views, but we never find out why Luke does not pursue them. <\/p>\n

\"Solitary<\/a>
\nWe do learn that the difference of religious orientation causes a considerable amount of distancing and strife between Luke and Adam. But, it is also not clear exactly what causes the division. Why does Luke’s praying cause Adam so much anguish? There is the expressed, and completely understandable, reason for Adam’s discomfort in the intolerance of homosexuality in Luke’s Christianity. Luke’s engagement in the sexual act is always followed by a prayerfully repentant aftermath. Adam’s anguish, in this regard, is completely understandable.<\/p>\n

But, Adam’s objection seems based on more than that. It appears that the religious orientation per se – Luke’s otherworldly, non-naturalistic, stance – is an issue for Adam. It is not just that Adam sees Luke’s Christianity as homophobic; he also feels that Luke’s love for Jesus rivals his love for Adam. <\/p>\n

This second issue is completely different in nature from the the intolerance issue. Unfortunately, in rolling them together, the play’s important critique of religious intolerance gets lost in a general observation of the difference between those with religious inclination and those without. Treating the psychology of homosexuality and religiously induced repentance is a great idea. Treating the notion of religiosity per se as a threat to relationship, in this case, gets in the way of the other, more pertinent issue.<\/p>\n

\"Will<\/a>

Will McGarrahan (Adam) and Dan Roach (Luke)
\nPhoto: Craig Bailey\/Perspective Photo, courtesy of Speakeasy Stage Company.<\/center><\/small><\/p>\n

There is little to let us know why Luke is unable to come out to his parents, except the obvious fact that they are conservative Southerners with a complicated personal history. That they have known something of wildness and craziness for some part of their lives suggests that they might be able to absorb this kind of news. But the play does not really help us figure out why they cannot.<\/p>\n

\"Deb<\/a>

Deb Martin (Holly) and Amelia Broome (Arlene)
\nPhoto: Craig Bailey\/Perspective Photo, courtesy of Speakeasy Stage Company<\/center><\/small><\/p>\n

Interestingly, with some of these fairly significant gaps in the writing, the play works quite well. <\/p>\n

Its dramatic sequence is carefully constructed. The ambiguity of the initial scene unfolds and clarifies itself with consistently revealed surprises and, with the sequence of flashbacks, it all makes quite good dramatic sense. <\/p>\n

And it is entertainingly written. Oddly, the narrative and subject matter are fairly dense, but the rendering, it turns out, is fairly light. It is a strange combination, but the result is a poignantly humorous presentation of a situation with a treatment that observes, rather than delves, into its substantial complications. <\/p>\n

Will McGarrahan as Adam was very good. I saw him last season at the Speakeasy Stage as the befuddled musical-lover of The Drowsy Chaperone<\/a><\/em>, which was fun; but this show gave him much more range and he was able to fill the space with an ingenuity and a compelling presence. <\/p>\n

Robert Walsh, who I have seen multiple times with the Actors’ Shakespeare Project<\/a>, is a superb actor and did a totally creditable job as Luke’s father. His boisterous manner was carried off expertly, and, when his moment of dramatic deflation came , it was stirring. <\/p>\n

Amelia Broome as Luke’s mother, Arlene, exhibited a cross between vulnerability, determination and irony that worked well both dramatically and humorously. <\/p>\n

Dan Roach as Luke showed the loverly side exuberantly and authentically; but it was not always so clear from his performance (nor, as noted above, from the writing) how the religiosity fit in. <\/p>\n

Deb Martin as Holly, gave a spirited performance and Kevin Kaine as Brandon was sedately durable in a more measured role.<\/p>\n

In the end, the audience was very enthusiastic and seemed to appreciate the combination of wittily crafted narrative and entertaining acting against a background that suggested, rather than depicted, its larger contours.<\/p>\n

– BADMan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Play (2010) By Geoffrey Nauffts Directed by Scott Edmiston Speakeasy Stage Company Boston, MA September 16 – October 15, 2011 With Will McGarrahan (Adam), Dan Roach (Luke), Amelia Broome (Arlene), Robert Walsh (Butch), Deb Martin (Holly), Kevin Kaine (Brandon). A heartfelt, dramatic yet entertaining, treatment of a gay couple with a difference of age and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-plays","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3366"}],"version-history":[{"count":75,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3532,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3366\/revisions\/3532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}