On Stage
KANFER, STEFAN
On Stage LAUGHTER IN THE DARK BY STEFAN KANFER "Je prends mon bien ouje le trouve." declared Moliere, "I take what belongs tome where I find it." What he took included portions of Plautus' moral...
...Chief among them is the hyperthyroid Buzz Hauser(Nathan Lane), connoisseur of musicals and monger of gossip: "You mean her Ladyship Derek Jacobi and Dame Ian McKellen...
...In School, Bedford impersonates the aristocratic prig Sganarelle, facing off with his liberal older brother, Ariste (Remak Ramsay...
...Finally, to get Moliere's full effect, the entire production must be vigorously directed by someone well aware of Emerson's dictum, "In skating over thin ice, our safety is our speed...
...This creative crisis has not diminished his generous nature, however, and he regularly opens his door to a gaggle of friends...
...Compassion...
...Some were tragic, some funny, some faithful, some promiscuous...
...He is the only one—speaking of taste—who steadfastly refuses to wear a tutu for Act Ill's inevitable and cloying after dinner mince...
...The plague throws its shadow across everyone present...
...The translations are by Richard Wilbur, one of the few U.S...
...On marriage...
...Even at his infrequent best, though, McNally shows little originality or audacity...
...his WASPish lover Arthur (John Benjamin Hickey...
...The action takes place at a summer house over three long weekends...
...He has also written some inexcusably tasteless ones ("This is like Adolf Hitler shtooping Anne Frank...
...and the playwright offers some poignant moments and coruscating lines...
...Both men have young female wards whom they plan to marry...
...The place is owned by Gregory (Stephen Bogardus), a regal dancemeister suffering from choreographer's block...
...Perry and Arthur bicker constantly...
...to capture the author's unique tone and lilt requires a translator of genius...
...A comic, observed Ed Wynn, is one who opens a funny door...
...Clearly, McNally is offering two proposals...
...features a group of eight gay men in the crosscurrents of professional and social life...
...Wilbur refreshes the old lines without diminishing their original flavor...
...Sganarelle believes in giving his intended, Isabelle (Patricia Dun-nock), a short leash on life: She'll close her ears to young men s fancy talk And never go unguarded for a walk...
...And just the place to catch one s death of cold...
...None has hidden his sexual identity...
...Bedford is a classic comedian—the purest one on Broadway...
...Some are tragic, some funny, some faithful, some promiscuous...
...That's the good news...
...Her aide in this amour is none other than Sganarelle himself, who unwittingly carries love letters to the young man, all the while burbling about the relation of discipline to fidelity...
...If you tickle them, do they not laugh...
...Gregory finds that he can no longer do the leaps and arabesques of last year...
...Both plays are energized by Brian Bedford, who plays the strong, stubborn lead in The School for Husbands and the fat, fatuous one in The Imaginary Cuckold...
...They vary as well from the straight world in their position as outsiders, and, in this era, their terror of early death...
...Since the mid-1600s, Moliere (Jean Baptiste Poquelin) has been provoking laughter and providing wisdom...
...In 1969, Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band featured a group of nine gay men in the crosscurrents of professional and social life...
...I think, when all is said It's better to be cuckolded than dead...
...Nevertheless, the character of Perry engaged my sympathy from start to finale...
...Five years ago Bedford won a Tony for Best Actor for his performance in Moliere's The School for Wives...
...Special attention must be paid to their predicament...
...Indeed, as Moliere/Wilbur might have put it: What Bedford does, no other actor can: Hilarity assumes the form of man...
...Lane is a standup, situp, liedown comic par excellence...
...Ariste is content to allow his fiancee Leonor (Cheryl Gaysunas) the freedom to go where she pleases and please whom she chooses...
...The double bill provides him with countless opportunities to display his virtuosity...
...Convinced that his nameless wife (Suzanne Bertish) and a young man, Lelie (David Aaron Baker), are having it on, he longs for a duel to rescue his honor—then thinks better of it: The grave's a dreary domicile...
...his most pedestrian speeches are given unexpected emphases and uncanny timing...
...and overheated Latino dancer Ramon (Randy Becker...
...For all its psychological candor and physical nudity...
...As the holy fool...
...They are faithful and they sleep around, they drink too much and regret it the next morning, they prize youth and they grow old...
...THE PROGRESS and regress of homosexual life is usually left to the political propagandists on either side...
...Thefarceur will receive the same citation...
...Throughout most of the action Buzz is loveless at the top of his lungs...
...No actor can squeeze more wit from a couplet, more zing from a punch line, or more laughter from a stroll across the stage...
...uptight lawyer Perry (Anthony Heald...
...In 1995, Terrence McNally's Love...
...Leonor turns out to be faithful and devoted to her guardian...
...Is he also suffering from the fatal virus...
...Show me a happy homosexual," said a character, articulating the play's most famous line, "and I'll show you a gay corpse...
...Valour...
...His triumphs are legendary: Tartuffe, The Imaginary Invalid, The Physician in Spite of Himself, The Bourgeois Gentleman...
...The answers are as profuse as the problems...
...Yet he was never funnier than in his one act plays, The Schoolfor Husbands and The Imaginary Cuckold...
...young, blind Bobby (Justin Kirk...
...In The Imaginary Cuckold Bedford is almost unrecognizable as another monsieur named Sganarelle...
...If you prick them, do they not bleed...
...The flesh is weak, as each day s gossip warns...
...This one is a booming Punchinello type, who seems to be made entirely of bulbs...
...HIV positive, he prefers to keep the world at bay— until the AiDS-afflicted James abruptly catches his eye and heart...
...What he took included portions of Plautus' moral farces, Boccaccio's sexual tales, and the plots and characters of Italy's commedia dell 'arte...
...But all Ramon has to do is touch him and the sightless youth succumbs...
...But no dramatist gave greater compensation for his pilferage...
...In the great Moliere tradition, nothing is as it seems...
...Lelie is in love with Celie (Gaysunas), giving the playwright opportunities for a festival of bright rhymes, mistaken assumptions and absurd coincidences...
...A comedian is one who opens a door funny...
...On fashion: Better by far to join the foolish throng Than stand alone and call the whole world wrong...
...Moliere wrote in Alexandrine couplets...
...Valour...
...Bobby professes his loyalty to Gregory, a man whose work he can never witness...
...is actually nothing more than The Big Chill seen from the other side of the bed, complete with nostalgic angst and bitchy asides...
...No, he's just another victim of that universal disease, middle age...
...I'm told...
...On child-raising: The more one lets the young run wild, the greater A task it is to discipline them later...
...Among the guests: vile-tempered pianist John...
...then again, junkyard dogs produce fewer decibels than Buzz...
...Love...
...no need for dissembling in our enlightened era...
...Or else there is no justice in the nation...
...They are all in the service of something Wilbur once identified as "a comic strip rendered in oils...
...Ann Hould- Ward's costumes are nearly as smart as Michael Langham's direction, and Douglas Stein's cannily designed set allows a street scene to become an interior without moving a single prop...
...Amid all this moral confusion, Joe Mantello's direction is unfailingly lucid...
...Almost all stayed in the closet...
...You can get a more accurate (and less shrill) summary by comparing two comedies, staged 25 years apart...
...In order not to seem stilted, those rhymes need the interpretation of an inspired cast, led by an expert jester...
...Loy Arcenas' set uses the best of Monet and Van Gogh...
...2. Homosexuals are just like everyone else...
...his kindly, lisping twin brother James (both played by John Glover...
...Miracle of miracles, these demands have been fully met in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production at the Criterion Theater...
...despite all her constraints, Isabelle manages to ignite a romance with a dashing neighbor, Valere (Malcolm Gets...
...Yet the couple would rather fight than switch: arguments and jealousies cement their relationship...
...1. Homosexuals are different in their humor (most of the group wants to don women's costumes for a campy ballet, in order to raise money for a favorite chanty...
...Memorial Day, July Fourth and Labor Day...
...There s nothing quite Like having a husband next to you at night, If onlyfor the cozy thought that he's Nearby to say 'God bless you ' when you sneeze...
...If I can help it, I shall not wear horns...
...And as for me...
...Wilbur dedicates the published translations to this performer, with good reason...
...John Kilgore's sound design truly evokes the natural aura of summer and fall...
...The casts for both plays consist of 10 splendid performers...
...Standing out from the outstanding are the always reliable Ramsay, who plays old and older, and Bertish, who is alternately a shy, wistful handmaid and a steamy harridan, and risible in both roles...
...In the short form every syllable counts...
...In fact, his soliloquizing is a waste of energy...
...This season conditions are ideal for a repeat...
...As the play unfolds, characters and crises begin to define themselves...
...The other visitors are markedly quieter...
...Of the supporting crew, Bogardus is the most credible and Heald the least...
...Still, the evening belongs to the star, currently giving the two best performances in town...
...The bad news, of course, is the spread of aids...
...Poet Laureates who actually deserved the title...
...Compassion...
...Why, then, are they so rarely performed in this country...
Vol. 78 • February 1995 • No. 2
