A bit of gay theater history

It is a snowy day in the Detroit area. Snow began falling last night and is expected to continue until tomorrow morning. We might get up to a foot of the stuff. I did get to the church service today, but the drive home, slow though not treacherous, was enough to convince me to not bother with a concert this afternoon. I'm also relieved that an evening inclusive service was canceled (though that team tends to do that before the first flake has fallen and just a week ago a predicted 3 inches didn't happen).



Friday evening I went to the Ringwald Theatre in Ferndale for a performance of The Boys in the Band. It was written in 1968 and for the time was groundbreaking for being a realistic portrayal of gay men. Prior to then gays in theater were cardboard characters of comic relief or pathetic men on their way to doom. So I was watching a bit of gay theater history.

The basic story is about a bunch of gay men who gather together in Michael's apartment to celebrate the birthday of Harold, one in their group. Also in the mix is Alan, Michael's college roommate. At first, Michael doesn't want Alan to know he is gay, but later accuses Alan of also being gay.

There are times this feels like a modern story, with many modern gay issues and lots of gay camp. But in other ways the story feels dated – most of these men are not in a good mentally healthy place. The story opens with Michael and Donald discussing Donald's most recent visit to his therapist and comparing notes about self-medication. And a good chunk of the second act is taken up with many of them, though mostly Michael, playing rather cruel mind-games with each other. Michael hasn't accepted that he is gay and that he will remain so.

Nearly all of the performances were excellent. The Ringwald is a small space and for this show the stage was enlarged, so there were only 40 seats for the audience. Alas, only about 15 of them had people sitting in them.