VIEWPOINTS – Two plays this fall theater season exemplify how far we’ve come

Two beautifully-acted plays this season have shown New York theatergoers how far gay life has evolved, at least in America, in the last half century or so. Seen together, these plays anchor each other and create a sense of a world shifting before your very eyes.

IMG_5102Topher Payne’s very funny Perfect Arrangement (RECOMMENDED) for Primary Stages, which recently closed at The Duke, cleverly parodies 1950s conventions as a means for its quartet of gay characters – two gay lovers and two lesbian lovers – to disguise their sexuality in the age of McCarthyism (think Far from Heaven meets I Love Lucy). Their “perfect arrangement” involves the gay men getting hitched to their lesbian counterparts in order to give the external impression of their heterosexuality, hence allowing them to live a semblance of a normal life. After a series of events, this arrangement steadily becomes increasingly unstable as a house of cards, leading to rather serious and progressive decisions having to be made. Although Mr. Payne’s play unfortunately loses its light touch and becomes somewhat didactic (as does Michael Barakiva’s direction) as the play delves into more serious, dramatic territory, I applaud his witty play on past stylistic conventions and effort to tell the story of those who came before.

IMG_5036Seeing Peter Parnell’s deeply felt Dada Woof Papa Hot (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), now playing in an elegant production (directed by Scott Ellis) at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, in close proximity to Perfect Arrangement made for a fascinating, if jarring, collective experience – both for me as an audience member, as well as for the 50-year-old Alan (truthfully acted by John Benjamin Hickey), one of the protagonists in Parnell’s play. You see, for Alan, who was likely born shortly after Senator McCarthy’s reign of terror, his identity as a gay man is inextricably tied to feelings of shame and instability (e.g., promiscuity, disease, and death), in addition to the struggle for equality. Therefore, finding himself having the stability of a heteronormative life – being married to a perfect husband (played impeccably by the always excellent Patrick Breen) and a father to a child – leads to the Woody Allen-esque existential crisis and the self-destructive actions that are at the crux of Dada Woof Papa Hot (from what I understand, The New Group’s Steve by Mark Gerrard and directed by Cynthia Nixon, which is still in previews, deals with much of the same themes). Seeing Perfect Arrangement, in which gays had to resort to ludicrous covenants, alongside Dada Woof Papa Hot gives dimension and context to Alan’s crisis, which may seem nebulous to those unfamiliar with or who have forgotten how much things have changed for the gay community in relatively short timeframe.

Even stylistically, these plays make interesting companion pieces. In many ways, it’s impossible to put oneself in the shoes of those in times gone by without unintentionally resorting to pseudo-parody. So why not press the parody pedal and all? This is exactly what Mr. Payne does in Perfect Arrangement (as did Caryl Churchill in the first act of her astonishing Cloud Nine, which received a stellar revival at the Atlantic earlier this season)? Dada Woof Papa Hot, on the other hand, deals with utterly contemporary questions, making Mr. Parnell’s sensitively and carefully observed naturalism the obvious approach. Again, the necessity to approach these stories in vastly divergent styles speaks to how much, indeed, times have changed.

 

DADA WOOF PAPA HOT
Off-Broadway, Play
Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre
1 hour, 35 minutes (no intermission)
Through January 3

PERFECT ARRANGEMENT
Off-Broadway, Play
Primary Stages at The Duke
2 hours (with one intermission)
Closed

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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