Tony Kushner’s monumental play took the theatrical world by storm when it emerged from the dissolving Reagan/Bush years. It was immediately produced worldwide and included in college text books. The seven hour two part “Gay Fantasia on National Themes” has been canonized the way DEATH OF A SALESMAN and A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE have been––it’s that important and like those other classics continues to speak to the human condition in a contemporary and vivid way. Most of the original cast of this new Off Broadway revival at The Signature Theatre has been replaced, but there is no loss, for the current cast headed by Michael Urie (our friend from “Ugly Betty”) as Prior Walter is superb. This production is directed by Michael Greif and as far as the acting is concerned he has lead his cast to a tight and emotionally rich production. On the other hand, there is a cumbersome and muddled set, pushed and shoved around by visible stagehands in black and headsets, with an overlay of projected images to either establish locations or cover transitions. Visually, it’s all a bit of a mess. The Signature Theatre space is not large, yet large pieces of scenery have been squeezed onto that stage. I have seen this play in a college black box space with nothing but the essential furniture and it was every bit as effective. But, clunky scenery aside, the cast makes the show work and certainly Mr. Kushner has designed it to work whether it’s a Broadway spectacle, a community theater production, a college show or this Off Broadway edition. The play is funny, bombastic, romantic, horrifying, shocking, controversial and wildly entertaining. Part 2, with its two intermissions and three and a half hour length, actually seems just right. I felt as I did when I first saw it in the mid 1990s––that I could have seen both parts in one day with a dinner break with no problem. Time has not been unkind to this play all about the 1980s and the confusion of the AIDS crisis. This is the main theme, but the play opens up discussion about gay rights, coming out, dirty politics, religion, family relationships and history. Kushner takes the mythology inherent in religious stories and uses them to create his own contribution to those stories––the Gospel according to Kushner. In Kushner’s heaven, the angels are desperately trying to hold things together without God, because He left with the San Francisco earthquake and we had to fend for ourselves. The result was plenty of war, a hole in the ozone and a plague, among other things. Kushner wrestles with the twentieth century the way Prior Walter wrestles with his angel.
Adam Driver plays the key role of Louis. He is much stronger than the pathetic eternal suffering Louis of the excellent Mike Nichols film version for HBO. His scenes with Belize (Billy Porter) are up to their usual excellence. Billy Porter also makes the verbal wrestling matches with Frank Wood as the villain Roy Cohn a delicious feast. Bill Heck, who has stayed with the production from the beginning as Joe, the married Mormon who comes out to enter into a relationship with Louis, is straight and sturdy even as he crumbles into confusion and sadness. He represents that part of every gay man’s life when he struggles to find his footing as he comes out into an intolerant world. Louis is out, but carries the guilt of his Jewish upbringing. Prior is the most evolved as the unapologetic gay man who is completely at home in his own skin––even though his body is failing him. These three characters touch on the various stages of any gay man’s experience and we can empathize with all of them. There is also Hannah the mother (Lynne McCullough), who has her own erratic way of dealing with her son Joe’s coming out and his wife Harper (Keira Keeley) who is high on drugs in order to not have to deal with her mixed up marriage and contradictory Mormon upbringing. So many areas of life are touched upon that this “gay play” is actually more universal than most. Therein lies its success and its staying power. Every time I see it I always feel that I have spent my time particularly well.
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