Theatre in Review: The Boys in the Band (Transport Group)

	Photo: Carol Rosegg. Aaron Sharff, Jonathan Hammond, Jon Levenson, and Nick Westrate in The Boys in the Band

There's no task more daunting than reviving a groundbreaking work. Too often, yesterday's scandale is today's sleeping pill -- and whatever it was that shocked, provoked, or otherwise upset the apple cart the first time around, can be impossible to recreate for audiences that have moved on to other concerns.

This would seem to go double for The Boys in the Band. Mart Crowley's 1968 drama -- an evening of sadistic fun and games among gay men at a Manhattan birthday party -- was a jaw-dropper in its day, racking up 1,000 performances back when homosexuality really was the love that dare not speak its name. It immediately moved onto the classics shelf -- and yet, it has proven to be a devil to revive. A 1996 staging lacked bite and a feeling for the period -- and today many viewers object to its extravagantly unhappy cast of characters. (Many upright citizens feel gays on stage should only be noble, handsome, and role models for the youth of America. The fact that this would be the death of drama matters little to them.) Crowley's group portrait has been dismissed as a mean-spirited caricature; I've even heard it branded as homophobic.

Jack Cummings III, the director of Transport Group's sizzling revival, isn't having any of this -- and he's not afraid to take bold steps to keep things lively. First off, he does away with the stage altogether. The audience takes the elevator to the 12th floor penthouse of a Chelsea loft, and is seated in and around the thoroughly believable apartment designed by Sandra Goldmark. It's a remarkably detailed piece of work, mixing furniture from various periods with lots of kicky '60s touches -- globular hassocks, white Lucite lamps, and an extra-wide hi-fi cabinet. (We even see the bedroom, with its matching striped wallpaper and duvet.) Tying it all together, two pillars are covered from floor to ceiling with black-and-white posters for a film retrospective titled Femmes Fatales. Amazingly, the entire show is lit only by the practical lamps scattered around the room. Even before anyone says a word, a solidly authentic atmosphere has been established. In addition, the action has been trimmed to an intermissionless two hours, leaving everyone -- audience and actors -- trapped in Crowley's elegantly constructed pressure-cooker.

All of this would be nothing more than a bunch of clever, shallow gimmicks if Cummings and his cast didn't have a tie line to the play's taut substructure -- as well as a collective ear for its pricelessly bitchy humor. ("What's more boring than a queen doing a Judy Garland imitation?" "A queen doing a Bette Davis imitation.") The actors bustle around the room, trading drinks and wisecracks with effortless naturalism -- and, when a truth is unexpectedly spoken, the silence that follows is deafening. And, when a supposedly straight interloper arrives, causing the event to go sour, they turn on him -- and each other -- with terrifying brio.

Jonathan Hammond is the perfect host as Michael, whose sense of self is receding along with his hairline, and who, after a polite, but bruising, encounter with an old college chum, unleashes his booze-fueled fury on his guests. That chum, Alan, an allegedly straight lawyer whose marriage is collapsing for unexplained reasons, is rendered as a tightly wound knot of hypocrisy and fear by Kevin Isola. Alan unthinkingly wounds Michael with derisive comments about "that sort" of man, resulting in a scene of almost Pinterian pregnancy and menace. When Michael turns on Alan, accusing him of the worst sort of sexual hypocrisy, the latter's animal terror is painful to see.

As Harold, the former ice skater known to his friends as "the frozen fruit" and "the Sonja Henie of the Borscht circuit," Jon Levenson channels the scary detachment and eerily precise diction of Leonard Frey, who first played Harold on stage and in the film. It might not be the most original choice, but Levenson is exactly the sinister presence the play requires, cutting the tension and emotion with his coldly amusing remarks, and stopping the room cold with his self-description as "an ugly pockmarked Jew fairy." He also delivers the coup de grâce to Michael in a climactic truth-telling session that leaves the latter stripped of the tiniest pretense.

The rest of the cast is equally fine. Kevyn Morrow probes beneath the surface of Bernard, the group's one black member, who has an extra load of prejudice on his plate. Graham Rowat communicates a finely calibrated sense of discomfort as Hank, who's divorced and stuck on the promiscuous Larry (Christopher Innvar, insolent and feline and as he eyes the room, looking for his next trick). John Wellman makes an indelible impression as Emory, the group swish, owner of the funniest lines as well as the most horrifying back story. Nick Westrate, as Donald, Michael's best friend and keeper, has to deal with a significantly reduced role -- his big monologue has been dropped -- but he's above reproach, as is Aaron Sharff as the sweet young hustler whose services Emory has purchased as Harold's birthday present.

They're basket cases one and all -- but they're also tough-minded survivors who've taken all the hate the world can throw at them, and are still standing. The Boys in the Band captures them at a crucial moment when they have tumbled out of the closet and into the ghetto. It's a stylish kind of prison; they've found a measure of freedom, but self-acceptance still rests just outside their grasp.

Not everything works. Dane Laffey's lighting design makes extremely clever use of the onstage lamps, but at times you'll wish you could see the actors' faces more clearly. (Kudos to Kathryn Rohe's costumes, however.) Some of the scenes with Hank and Larry slide into sententiousness; even a pro like Innvar has a little trouble making his defense of his tomcatting ways sound convincing. And it takes all of the director's wiles to make us accept that all of the characters would take part in Michael's vicious idea of a party game, which involves calling up one's true love and baring one's soul.

Nevertheless, Cummings has gotten to the heart of a play that, aside from its strong construction and acidly hilarious dialogue, thrilled audiences by saying what had never been said before. "If we could just not hate ourselves so much," moans Michael, trying to kill his late-night panic with a Valium. Some think that line is bathetic; I think it's a call to arms. (Little did anyone know that, a year later, gays would be marching in the streets.) This production lets you feel that kind of urgency; thanks to the Transport Group, The Boys in the Band hasn't been revived; it's been brought back to life.--David Barbour