Theatre in Review: The Twentieth Century Way (Theatre @ Boston Court/Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)One of the more squalid episodes in American law-enforcement history is aired in The Twentieth Century Way. Playwright Tom Jacobson, perusing the book Gay L.A., by Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons, learned how, in 1914, a pair of actors named Warren and Brown were engaged by the Long Beach Police department as "vice specialists" in an entrapment sting aimed at gay men. As one of Jacobson's characters makes graphically clear, improved health standards in the early 20th century -- not to mention the invention of the zipper -- made possible the obtaining of quick satisfaction via oral sex. (Fellatio then became known as "the twentieth century way.") Thus an entire range of men -- from married pillars of the church and community to fey-acting florists and clothiers -- could find sexual relief from like-minded souls hanging out in public places. It was Warren and Brown's job to get such men to expose themselves, so to speak -- and then expose them to the world. In this Pirandellian two-hander, Jacobson imagines Warren and Brown occupying a bare stage with a ghost light and wardrobe rack. Brown says he is waiting for a film audition. ("I most recently played Othello," he says, a shock laugh line since the actor Will Bradley is very, very pale and very, very young.) Warren, who is older, recruits Brown to join him in his crusade against the "Houdinis of abomination" who are, he says, turning Long Beach into a sinkhole of vice. Besides, he adds, they'll get $15 a head for each victim they collar. The best part, he says: "You don't have to feel it; just act like you do." Brown, nonplussed, wonders, "Is this how they audition people in Hollywood?" Their methodology most often involves luring men to bathhouses and men's rooms, where the poor souls put their members into "glory holes," expecting a man to service them orally on the other side of the wall; instead, Warren or Brown is there, marking their penises with an indelible pen as a prelude to making an arrest. Brown requires a certain amount of coaxing, but soon they're at it, pursuing their marks. Brown focuses on Herbert, a local florist, who opens up his guest cottage and offers him membership in "The 96 Club," in which men get together in each other's homes. Warren, pretending to be a German immigrant, targets Mr. Lamb, a businessman and member of his church's vestry, who was born in Scotland. (Warren plays Herbert; Brown takes on the role of Lamb.) Brown exploits Herbert's yearning for someone younger to care for; the older man's faith in him remains touchingly intact even after Brown engineers a raid on a meeting of The 96 Club when Herbert is absent.) Warren manipulates Lamb, who is entrapped by his own respectability, establishing them as brother immigrants. The on-stage action crackles as Brown and Warren swap out identities on a dime, switching from predator to prey. But what exactly are we seeing? Are they auditioning to play Warren and Brown? Are they Warren and Brown, going about their seedy business? Is Jacobson's drama a bitter, mordant comment on the lengths to which actors will go to earn applause? Or is all this role-playing Warren's elaborate attempt to seduce Brown? Certainly there is plenty of sexual tension between them; whenever they face off, standing too close together, it looks like something is about to happen. But why does Warren violently recoil from any proffered kiss? At its best, The Twentieth Century Way is a fascinating and hair-raising episode from gay history; scene after scene charts the ugly way Warren and Brown zero in on their victims' vulnerabilities, opening them emotionally in order to destroy them. (I won't say who, but one of them commits suicide, while another fights back ferociously. The stakes are high, since an oral sex conviction could bring a sentence of 15 years in prison.) As time goes by, it becomes brutally clear that Warren and Brown are becoming as damaged as the men they pretend to befriend. The Twentieth Century Way isn't a perfect work; some of the art-versus-reality dialogue can get awfully sententious, and the action climaxes in a stripping away of artifice that doesn't really convince. But however you wish to look at it, Bradley (Brown) and Robert Mammana (Warren) contribute tautly intertwined performances that keep you guessing about each man's intentions. Mammana's charming smile masks all sorts of creepy undertones, as does his tantalizing manner, contrasted with the fury with which he pushes the younger man away when things get too intimate. He is nearly as good as Herbert, whose shyness and warmth don't obscure a furious talent for self-preservation. Bradley's Brown comes across as something of a neophyte, but soon he develops some sharp elbows of his own; he is less than fully convincing as Lamb, although he captures the older man's deep-in-the-bone desire for someone to love. The director, Michael Michetti, never lets the tension level drop for a second. Michetti has also gotten fine work from his designers. Clifton Chadick's set has an appropriately haunted feel, as if we are in some kind of limbo between past and present; Elizabeth Harper's noirish lighting adds to the atmosphere. Garry Lennon's costumes are a fine example of men's tailoring just before World War I. Cheers to Rattlestick for presenting The Twentieth Century Way (which originated at The Theatre @ Boston Court, an LA-based company) during Gay Pride Month. It opens a window on an episode that may seem almost incredible to many young gay men; it's all the more important that they learn about what went on in this country not that long ago. (Warren and Brown apparently took their lucrative crusade to cities up and down the California coast.) And because this terrible tale is told with a maximum of theatrical invention by a pair of exceptionally skilled actors, it provides a suspenseful, provocative evening for theatregoers of all sexual orientations. -- David Barbour 
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