GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

DECEMBER 9, 1994

Evenings Out

MARTHA SWOPE

Eight gay men share their lives and loves in Terrence McNally's new play.

An intimate record of the lives of gay men

Love! Valour! Compassion!

by Terrence McNally

Manhatten Theatre Club

Reviewed by Barry Daniels

Terrence McNally's new play Love! Valour! Compassion! has been dubbed the "gay Our Town." In Joe Mantello's eloquent and simple staging at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York, it looks like it is becoming the theatrical event of the season.

The play is a complex group portrait of eight gay men. It is structured like a piece of music with themes and variations worked out across its three acts. McNally scrambles chronology within each act in order to achieve dramatic effect. By using narration and commentary throught the work, McNally successfully presents both action and reflection.

The opening commentary by modern dance choreographer Gregory Mitchell (Stephen Bogardus), who stutters when he is uncomfortable, as he seems to be when he addresses the audience, invites us into his beautifully crafted country home, Mandalay, located on a lake a few hours north of Manhattan. This is the first of the evening's many metaphors: for what McNally has done in this play is open the door on his experience as a gay man; he's inviting us into the intimacy of that world. When Gregory notes, "I hope you appreciate detail," he is letting us know that the evening's pleasures will reside in the accumulation of beautifully observed moments.

Love! Valour! Compassion! takes place on the Memorial Day (Act I), July 4th (Act II), and Labor Day (Act III) weekends of a single recent summer. Gregory has invited friends to share these holidays with him and his blind lover, Bobby Brahms (Justin Kirk). The group is selected to offer a fairly representative picture of the lives and loves of gay men, at least of those who are reasonably sophisticated and affluent.

There are two established couples in the play. Gregory and Bobby have been together a few years. At 43, Gregory is approaching an age when he will no longer be able to dance. He is stuck in an artistic dry spell as he tries to deal with this reality. Gregory seems to divert his anxiety into a demanding neediness that becomes oppressive to Bobby. Perry Sellars (Stephen Spinella), a lawyer, and accountant Arthur Pape (John Benjamin Hickey) have been together 14 years. “We're role models!" quips Perry, "It's very stressful!" Perry, all manic energy, has an acid tongue and a biting intolerance of political correctness. Arthur is his perfect foil, quiet and gentle.

John Jeckyll (John Glover) is the play's villain. He is a bitter and self-loathing British composer of a failed musical comedy who is Gregory's rehearsal pianist. His date is a hot young Puerto Rican dancer, Ramon Fornos (Randy Becker). Ramon is street-smart and

talented; he knows the power of his beauty and how to use it. Almost all the other men are attracted to him. His palpably sensual presence ruffles the stability of the other relationships. Buzz Hauser (Nathan Lane), a costume designer and musical comedy queen, is the source of much of the play's laughter. He never misses a chance to bitch and dish. He's a walking encyclopedia of trivia about obscure musical comedies. But he is overweight, unloved and is dying of AIDS. The romance he so sorely needs arrives in the figure of John Jeckyll's queeny twin brother, James (also played by Glover). James too has AIDS, a fact his brother is unable to face.

McNally is gifted in the art of intimate portraiture. Each of these characters is as finely sketched as an Ingres drawing. As details accumulate, the effect is striking. Scene after scene hits home. Who-no matter how committed to a relationship could not feel desire for Ramon? Who could not be touched by the subtle ways in which longtime companions Arthur and Perry support each other? Who could not recognize the pain of the gradually disintegrating relationship between Gregory and Bobby? I remember the scene that made the friend who went with me cry. It was a different scene that made me cry, and we laughed in different spots, too. This is a testimony to McNally's ability to capture so wide and varied a range of gay experience.

Each scene is a vignette. These vignettes are staged with great sensitivity to their emotional reality by multi-talented Joe Mantello (he acted the part of Louis in Angels in America). He creates an evening of unforgettable moments: the spilled milk as Bobby and Ramon embrace; Ramon taking a nude sunbath on a platform in the lake; Buzz's entrance wearing only a chintz apron, hat and heels; the anniversary dinner for Arthur and Perry; the dancing couples at the end of Act II; the men in white tutus doing the pas de cygne from Swan Lake; the joyful moonlit skinny-dipping scene that concludes the play. Loy Arcenas's spare set with the simplest of props is a neutral background that allows the actors and playwright to create a whole world. Brian MacDevitt's lighting is all atmosphere and beautiful compositions that focus on the actor. The acting is uniformly excellent. The characters are so perfectly realized that it is hard to think that some of the actors might be straight.

Seeing Love! Valour! Compassion! is very much like looking at a photograph album. It is an intimate record of the lives of gay men. As the pictures take shape on stage, gay people in the audience cannot help but feel the rush of memory. Through its specificity the play achieves a universality. It is McNally's most accomplished piece of writing, a nuanced and deeply felt examination of what it means to be gay in our present world.

Love! Valour! Compassion! is currently playing at the Manhattan Theatre Club, TuesdaySaturday at 8 pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 pm, Sunday at 7 pm. The initial run, now sold out, has been extended into January and plans are in the works to move the production to another theatre. For ticket information telephone 212-581-1212.