Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – In MESSY WHITE GAYS, Drew Droege goes down the same gay rabbit hole, happily and giddily

• By drediman
• November 7, 2025
• No Comments

This week at The Duke on 42nd Street, Drew Droege’s new gay romp Messy White Gays opened Off-Broadway. Best known for his comedic, gay-themed solo shows Happy Birthday Doug and Bright Colors and Bold Patterns, Droege now expands his scope by writing a play for a cast of a whopping five actors (including himself, of course). In short, the actor/playwright’s latest piece tells the farcical story of an upper middle class white gay couple who murders the third wheel of their throuple and are faced with — alongside their two friends and their downstairs neighbor (played by Droege) — the dilemma of cleaning up the mess they created.

Despite the more ambitious scale of Messy White Gays, Droege thematically goes down the same rabbit hole that he’s gone down in his previous works, but with updated references to the current landscape of gay culture. This isn’t necessarily a negative thing, especially for those new to Droege’s slicing, full throttle gay version of a comedy of manners that leaves no one unscathed. In writing for more than just himself, the limitations of his character building — his characters are more two dimensional caricatures than fully fledged humans, but I suspect this is by design — are a bit more evident. For New York gays, the piece is perhaps most amusing when it’s place/name dropping and referencing aspects of their own lives. Indeed, in its own subversive way, the play is a love letter to New York City, albeit as seen through a gay lens. It’s a clever device that inherently implicates, merely by association, many in the audience in the darkly satirical proceedings that transpire onstage.

To reference another Droege comedy, the production has been directed in “bright colors and bold patterns” by Mike Donahue, whose decision to pump of the play’s outrageousness and campiness works in its favor. Indeed, the shock-and-awe approach largely camouflages the play’s shortcomings as a piece of cohesive theater. The performances follow suit, with a particular standout being the turn being given by Pete Zias, who all but runs away with the show with his zany and unhinged portrayal of an aging, cocaine-snorting, and slightly delusional musical theater actor. And then of course, there’s Droege himself, who reluctantly but finally giddily succumbs to sharing the stage, hilariously spewing venomous commentary every step of the way.

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MESSY WHITE GAYS
Off-Broadway, Play
The Duke on 42nd Street
1 hour, 20 minutes (without an intermission)
Open run