Yes, There's Change, Then There Is Not

When the Tony Awards are presented next Sunday night in New York City, two productions with gay themes — one vying for best new play and the other for best revival of a musical — will highlight changes in subject and tone in “gay theater� over the last 25 years.

   AIDS attacked New York in 1981, and authorities quickly labeled it a gay male disease and did little to fight it. Gay men discovered more horrible symptoms and effects, as well as lists of the dead, each week in the Village Voice. Activists began to agitate for public funding of AIDS treatment in the city, since insurance companies denied claims. And anger in the gay community mounted.

   Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart,â€� produced in 1985 by Joe Papp at the Public Theater, was the first play to deal with the epidemic and its consequences for victims, partners, friends and family. Never a dramatist of subtlety, Kramer raged furiously and demanded respect for gay people in a searing polemic. This was not the 1970s world of  “The Boys in the Band,â€� wallowing in alcohol, stereotype and self-pity.  Kramer wanted gays to stand up and shout.

   Five years later, Tony Kushner’s epic “Angels in Americaâ€� won all the major Tonys; but the theme of Kushner’s lyrical play was still AIDS and discrimination.

   This year, “Next Fall,â€� competing for best new play, concerns a gay couple — one man young, southern and Christian; one older, a New Yorker, agnostic — dealing with religious faith in a gay relationship.  The revival of Jerry Herman’s “La Cage aux Follesâ€� emphasizes the love story of two men who have raised one’s son together, and Douglas Hodge sings “I Am What I Amâ€� as a quiet statement of fact. In the original, George Hearn made the song an anthem of  gay liberation.

   Other gay-themed shows of the past year have also centered on more universal themes: love, commitment, parenthood. “Yank,â€� a surprisingly charming musical that played earlier in 2010, off-Broadway, told the story of two soldiers in World War II (“Yankâ€� was the army newspaper in that conflict) who fall in love. “The Pride,â€� an English import, had its characters live in the 1950s in the first act, then live all over again in current time, dealing with being gay in the different periods.

   “The Temperamentals,â€� which recently closed off-Broadway, concerned the personal life of a founder of The Mattachine Society, the country’s first significant gay male organization, and his circle of friends.  But it concerned growing self-awareness and changing personal relationships more than politics.

    I don’t think “Next Fallâ€� will win a Tony because its writing is too weak and often inchoate. But how refreshing it is to see large audiences watching gay men wrestling with questions of faith on stage.  I do think “La Cageâ€� may well win.  And deservedly so with its humanity and universality explored.

    Of course, in this “newâ€� world of liberation, greater acceptance and freedom, even a probable end to “don’t ask, don’t tell,â€� some things remain: The young, religious character in “Next Fallâ€� can’t bring himself to tell his parents or his stepbrother he is gay. In some very personal ways, “plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.â€�

    

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