AUGUST 20, 1993

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

19

ENTERTAINMENT

Love in the age of AIDS

Reviewed by Barry Daniels Jeffrey is a wickedly funny sex comedy by Paul Rudnick currently enjoying a very successful run off-Broadway in New York. Rudnick manages to satirize various aspects of the gay scene as well as raise some thought-provoking questions about how the gay community confronts its sexuality in this time of disease.

The curtain comes up on two men in silhouette lustily engaged in anal intercourse. When his partner announces that he thinks the rubber just broke, our hero, Jeffrey, starts to confront his own fears about AIDS. As he wistfully remembers sex before the disease, he is joined in bed by five more scantily clad and sexy men, and, finally, a woman. It is an orgy to end all orgies as Jeffrey recalls that "sex wasn't meant to be safe, or negotiated, or fatal" and decides that for him the future will have "no more sex."

After this raucous and sexy prologue our hero's picaresque adventures begin. Of course, in the next scene at a gym, Steve, a dreamboat of a man, comes on to him, and Jeffrey's vow is sorely tested but not broken. The plot follows Steve's pursuit of Jeffrey. He is helped by Jeffrey's best friend Sterling, a sharp-tongued decorator, and his lover Darius, a dumb doll of a chorus boy (in Cats), whom Sterling compares to "a wonderful pet that can feed and wash itself."

Strung along the simple thread of this plot are a series of satiric scenes that sparkle gaudily like fine costume jewelry. The scene at the gym pokes fun at the pain and desire that mingle in the cruisy bodybuilding-fitness scene in New York. There is a game show send-up called "It's Just Sex." The "Hoedown for AIDS" benefit is a countrywestern night at the Waldorf with cute wait-

Note on New York theater

Half-price tickets are available for some shows on the day of performance at TKTS, located at 47th Street and Broadway, where tickets go on sale at 3 pm for evening performances and 11 am for matinees.

One of the largest selections of theater books is available nearby at the Drama Book Shop, 48th Street and Seventh Ave. Finally, cheap (singles $35-$40) dormitory-type rooms are available at the YMCAS of New York. I especially recommend the Vanderbilt Y at 47th Street between Second and Third Avenues, and the West Side Y at 63rd Street near Central Park West. Rooms include use of the health club facilities.

-Barry Daniels

-ers (including Jeffrey and Steve) dressed as cowboys and Indians and presided over by a society hostess who recalls Barbara Hutton in Calamity Jane. There is a post-modern evangelist and a self-help session for sex compulsives.

Jeffrey visits Beats All, an S & M masturbation club, and is accosted at St. Patrick's Cathedral by a randy priest looking for a quickie before delivering mass. There is a pride march featuring a mother and her preoperative transsexual lesbian son. Jeffrey fantasizes an hilarious "out" telephone discussion with his parents in the Midwest during which his mother politely asks him if he is a top or a bottom. All these vignettes are sharply drawn and punctuated with witty one-liners.

Jeffrey has a serious side, however, and Rudnick artfully handles the shift in the action from satire to a romantic comedy that confronts the AIDS epidemic. AIDS and fear of AIDS are the themes at the heart of the play, and they are not dealt with lightly. The climax of Act I is Steve's revelation to Jeffrey, when they are about to go out on a date arranged by matchmakers Sterling and Dariu that he is HIV positive. It is a touching monologue in which he concludes with the simple statement that "Sometimes I just want to forget for a while."

Jeffrey's refusal to kiss him represents a rejection that the rest of the play will question. Jeffrey's rejection of Steve and sex are contrasted with the positive relationship and attitudes of Sterling and Darius, who has AIDS and will eventually die in the course of the action.

In Act II, Steve is the moral center of the play; he proceeds with life after being rejected by Jeffrey. He organizes a pride march and takes a lover. We see him working as a volunteer at St. Vincent's hospital in the ward for babies with AIDS. "We are all AIDS babies who need to be held," he notes. When Jeffrey tries to comfort Sterling after Darius' death, Sterling lashes out at Jeffrey's "I'm sorrys," reminding Jeffrey that, although Darius "had a fatal disease, he was a million times happier than you!" It is clear that Jeffrey's rejection of sex is a rejection of life and that the only way he can honor Darius is to honor life.

I can't imagine a sharper, funnier, more touching staging of this play than Christopher Ashley's production at the tiny Minetta Lane Theatre. Set designer James Youmans uses bright-colored projections and minimal props to create a comic strip world for the satire. David C. Woolard's costumes are witty comments on styles from the ghetto. But for all the outrageous humor, Ashley allows the serious themes of the play to develop.

The acting is superb throughout. John Michael Higgins' Jeffrey has an appropriate Candide-like naivete. He is so sweetly cute that it is hard to dislike him for his

FAMILY CAR

negative position. Tom Hewitt's Steve is a thoroughly engaging hunk with a heart of gold, an HIV positive man who has made a commitment to life. As Sterling, the middleaged decorator with the wicked tongue, EdIward Hibbett reveals the rich humanity of the man beneath the glittering brittle surface. Bryan Batt's Darius is a darling young man whose lack of brains is his charm and whose love of Sterling is his strength. Four actors and one actress deftly play all the other roles in the comedy.

Towards the end of Jeffrey, a character says, "Make trouble, make out, hate AIDS, not life." This motto neatly sums up the message of the play. It is a plea for us not to cave into guilt and denial when confronted with the disease. It is a call to face the death that

John Michael Higgins (1) as Jeffrey, Tom Hewitt as Steve.

surrounds us with the strongest weapons we have: pride and love.

Jeffrey is playing in New York at the Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane (between Bleecker and West Third, just east of Sixth Avenue). Performances are Tues-

day through Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 7 pm and 10 pm; and Sunday at 3 pm and 7 pm. Tickets are $37.50 and $35. For tickets call TicketMaster at 212-307-4100 or the Minetta Lane box office at 212-420-8000.

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