Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you must see this. Not just because it’s an excellent gay-themed production. Not just because it’s a chance to see Michael Urie of Ugly Betty fame in a live theatre setting, showing some very strong acting chops. No, you must see this because [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘theatre’
March 11, 2010
Review: The Temperamentals
March 4, 2010
Review: Mr. & Mrs. Fitch
Originally reviewed by GaySocialites.com.
I like Douglas Carter Beane a lot, so I’ll try to be kind about Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, a comedy I really wanted to like, but couldn’t. Mostly, I have a lot of questions.
Right off the bat, I want to know: Douglas Carter Beane, do you talk like your two titular gossip [...]
March 4, 2010
Review: Yank!
Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.
Set during World War II, the new musical Yank! follows a young serviceman named Stu (Bobby Steggart) as he nervously explores his attraction to men. Bookwriter David Zellnik has created a compelling voyage of discovery for Stu, as he finds true love, promiscuous sex and underground gay culture in ways that overlap [...]
February 26, 2010
Review: The Boys in the Band
Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.
The Boys in the Band for a long time had an unfair reputation as being the worst kind of gay play: full of self-hating homos, representing a whole spectrum of stereotypes. It gained this reputation largely because it was among the first commercially successful gay-themed plays. It was the late sixties, and [...]
February 11, 2010
Review: When Joey Married Bobby
Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.
What a startlingly entertaining comedy this is! Sweetly bland gay hunk Joey (Matthew Pender) decides to marry the never-seen Bobby. But, title to one side, that’s not the real story here.
Joey’s Southern socialite mother Sarah Edwards is the real central character, a fantastic comic creation of the Atlanta-based playwrighting team that goes [...]
February 7, 2010
Review: A View from the Bridge
Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.
For once, finding homophobia in a play doesn’t offend me. When Brooklyn longshoreman Eddie Carbone, the protagonist of A View from the Bridge, says that Rodolpho, a fresh-off-the-boat Italian immigrant, “isn’t right” or is a “punk,” he’s certainly insinuating something about his sexuality.
Clearly, though, the homophobia we’re seeing isn’t a reflection of [...]
February 7, 2010
Review: The Orphan’s Home Cycle, Part Two
Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.
Horton Foote’s The Orphan’s Home Cycle follows a modest, honest Texan soul, Horace Robedaux (played with quiet dignity by the handsome Bill Heck), from childhood through adulthood, over the course of nine one-acts spread out over three evenings. Part Two takes place just under 100 years ago, and focuses on Horace’s married [...]
January 28, 2010
Review: Time Stands Still
Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.
Manhattan Theatre Club does very well with plays by Donald Margulies. His Sight Unseen was the first play to be an unqualified success in their Broadway theatre in 2004 (called the Biltmore at the time, now called the Friedman). His Brooklyn Boy received a similar reception the following season. Now, after a [...]
January 22, 2010
Review: Present Laughter
Originallyreviewed for GaySocialites.com.
In aging matinee idol Garry Essendine, the central character in Present Laughter, playwright and gay sophisticate Noël Coward created one of the great comic monsters of the modern theater. All the greater because behind his arrogant, preening exterior, Garry is actually a truly compassionate, loving person, surprisingly devoted to the friends he so [...]
January 12, 2010
Review: The Mikado
Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.
I remember seeing a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1885 operetta The Mikado when I was a kid and thinking it was one of the most hilarious things I had ever seen. So, when I saw that, in this slow-as-usual January, the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players would be presenting it, [...]
