Wild Animals You Should Know

If there's an off-Broadway play you should see this season, add Thomas Higgins' thought provoking, contemporary new work, Wild Animals You Should Know, to your list.  The play is not an "answer" play, but rather a play that presents characters and situations and leaves you to assemble your own judgments.   Mr. Higgins, along with the young and talented director Trip Cullman, certainly have their own points of view, but this is one of those plays that suggests, pokes, and prods you in a direction, but never comes out and tells you what you should walk away thinking.  In this light - my review may be one of many you read - and you may find someone else with an entirely different take on what they saw.   And I'm pretty sure that's just what Mr's Cullman and Higgins intend.

Jacob (Gideon Glick), an awkward, skinny, affable yet shy, dorky, friendly, openly-gay middle school kid in the suburbs (think Curt from Glee, if you must) is in love with Matthew (Jay Armstrong Johnson) a virtually perfect human specimen - to-die-for looks, blond hair, chiseled body, talented, smart, athletic, outgoing, engaging and fun to be around (think... well fill in your own fantasy with that one).   Right from the very beginning both Jacob (and the audience) is teased by pretty-boy Matthew stripping his clothes off for Jacob over Skype.   Is Matthew gay?  Or is he just an attention-craving teenage boy with a bestie who's gay?  That happens today, right?  Not sure yet.  He claims he's not.  Things heat up when Matthew gazes out his window and catches a glimpse of two men in a window across the street kissing.  He's fascinated (or is it more?). The man happens to be his handsome 20-something Boy Scout Troop Leader (shocker!), Rodney (John Behlmann).  He goes on later to make a passing reference to Jacob's great blow jobs which he enjoys but of course for which he never reciprocates.  Did he just say that? Maybe?  Still not sure.

When the two teen-boys end up going on a camping trip with the Scout Leader, Matthew sets the wheels in motion to "out" the scout leader by coming onto him and then threatening to tell everyone he was molested by the leader if he didn't resign.   The sexual tension and anger in this scene is palpable back to the last row of the theatre.  Unfortunately, his plot works and not only does the scout leader end up resigning, he's outed to the entire town and now everyone is speculating as to why he was involved with the scouts in the first place.

Matthew's father, Walter, (Patrick Breen) is involved in the camping trip too and he has his own set of issues - some suggested and others admitted - husband-wife (Alice Ripley) issues, father-son issues, inferiority, assertiveness.  Matthew is clearly the proverbial gun in this single act play.  And this gun is not only fired directly at Rodney, it's fired repeatedly at his best friend Jacob and indirectly at his father (and mother).

The entire 100 minutes are spent speculating who and what Matthew really is is deep down inside.  I made up my mind early on, mostly taking my cues from the periodic spot-lighting of characters in certain scenes, the purposeful looks, and the general repetition of the proposition and theme itself - plus, of course, my own personal experiences growing up gay.  I'm pretty sure that we're supposed to leave the theatre feeling sorry for Matthew, even after all he's done to destroy others' lives.  The only way I can see you could feel that way after all he's done is to logically conclude that for all his outward popularity, perfection, and all-American good-looks and talents is that he's really gay and frightened to death someone will find out and it will ruin his life.  His only mechanism to deal with it is to wield his power  (i.e. his ego, talents, and beauty) to dominate others and prove he's superior when all the while he's hurting on the inside yearning to break free.

I'm pretty sure either Mr. Cullman or Mr Higgins himself made sure that the very last scene of the play clinched the deal for those that hadn't already made up their minds.  You'll just have to sit through all 99 minutes to see what I mean.   The last minute is well worth the other 98.

The Normal Heart

The life-story of Larry Kramer, AIDS activist, author and playwright, finally makes it to Broadway - a late, but welcome addition to the spring season.  Having had several off-Broadway runs, most recently in 2004 staring Raul Esparza, this incarnation puts a Tony award winning director, Joe Mantello, in the leading acting role.  Directed by Joel Grey (who's kinda busy with Anything Goes) and George C. Wolfe, the production takes on a brisk rhythm, maintains it's level of anger at or just below the boiling point, and serves to educate us all, once again, as to the political, social, and medical roots of this plague called AIDS.

Mantello shows off his superb acting chops as Ned Weeks, the central character of of this 1980's real-life drama, for which a Tony nomination is certainly due for his outstanding performance.  I took notice on several occasions that with both eyes firmly on the scene in front of him, a third, unseen eye in his brain was feeding him all sorts of instructions for little gestures, movements and pauses in dialogue that only a keen director would want to see an actor give.  The ensemble cast that supports him; Luke MacFarlane, Patrick Breen, Wayne Alan Wilcox, Ellen Barkin, Lee Pace, John Benjamin Hickey, Mark Harelick, Jim Parsons, and Richard Topol; is equally talented and in lock step with Mantello's energy, passion, emotion, and intensity.  A true ensemble cast at its best.

I recall seeing the 2004 production at the Public Theatre, but as with all shows that are re-staged and re-presented - this version in 2011 seemed to pack a bigger punch, emphasize the explosive emotional nature of the story and focus less on the back story and friendships and founding of GMHC.

The play is always performed, as far as I know, without scenery and this production was no exception.  The words and headlines in white-on-white on the back and side walls of the stage were effective in communicating unspoken dialogue and both the lack of audio (the performers were not mic'd) and the inclusion of audio at each scene change were both powerful and subtly effective tools which served to amplify the impact of the overall performance.

Mr. Kramer was, and still is, a complex and confrontational human being.  This is his story, his life's work and and it certainly deserves the fine production that Ms. Roth and her partners have given it.

Next Fall

The next big thing in gay theatre seems to be coming of age on Broadway.  Gone are the days of shows about AIDS, an awkward gay kid coming of age, or the seemingly requisite gay character who's a wickedly funny sidekick or comic relief to the main storyline.

Geoffrey Nauffts has created a modern look at love, relationships, religion, and family that will bring you from laughter to tears and back again.  Patrick Breen and Patrick Heusinger bring Adam and Luke to life at a moment of dire crisis.  Flashbacks serve to explain the evolution of their relationship and scenes from the present are spliced in to remind us why they are all assembled together.  Throw in religion (or the lack thereof), parents from Texas, and friends from New York and you might have all the ingredients necessary for an overblown, explosive gay vs straight donnybrook ready to blow.  However, Nauffts paints the story without extreme bias to any one point of view and.  In so doing, he makes the show more personal, more believable, and the audience more sympathetic to the overall issue rather than alienating anyone.

There are too many good lines and honest points of view portrayed in this show that it's hard to do them all justice.   Suffice to say - no matter what your politics, you'll find love stamped all over this show among all the various characters, no matter what your point of view - or theirs.