The Temperamentalsat New World Stages
Reviewed by
Erik Haagensen
February 28, 2010
While Marans and his excellent director, Jonathan Silverstein, have tweaked the show in a variety of small ways, including restaging it for a proscenium house while happily retaining the original's intimacy, they haven't needed to make any major changes. They've always known exactly what they were about: telling an obscure but important slice of gay political history that features a moving love story at its center. The history is the creation during the 1950s of the first American gay rights organization, the Mattachine Society. The love story is that of founders Harry Hay, a descendant of Mayflower voyagers and Communist activist who ultimately spent his life in the service of gay causes, and Rudi Gernreich, a Jewish Viennese refugee who became a famous fashion designer. In Marans' expert hands, the personal and the political inevitably affect and reinforce each other, resulting in a highly compelling drama that doesn't need to choose the one over the other. This production features four of the original five cast members, and their sterling work shines even more brightly. Thomas Jay Ryan as Hay remains the sole actor not to double in another role, and he's still the blazing center of the play, charting with even greater subtlety Hay's journey from closeted husband and father obsessed with his masculinity to the fey founder in 1979 of the sexually liberated Radical Faeries. Michael Urie matches him in intensity and detail as Gernreich, whose intelligence is as much responsible for his sexual magnetism and charm as are his good looks. In the capable hands of Ryan and Urie, the political arguments are as hotly engaging as the couple's star-crossed romance. Matthew Schneck makes the sunny, love-'em-and-leave-'em Southern queen Bob Hull even more appealing, while Sam Breslin Wright, as former cop Dale Jennings, intriguingly combines his character's macho, working-class attitudes with an increasingly confident self-acceptance. New to the company is Arnie Burton, who apparently was a part of the show's early development process prior to its initial production. Burton slips smoothly into the ensemble, particularly as Chuck Rowland, Hull's Minnesota-bred former lover, who's an odd blend of Midwestern conservatism and Communist activism. But Burton's Vincente Minnelli is less successful than Tom Beckett's. Burton goes for the surface attributes—Minnelli's popping eyes, pursed mouth, and idiosyncratic head tilts—but he misses Minnelli's essence, in particular playing him far more butch than the man I met in the mid-1970s. Set and costume designer Clint Ramos and lighting designer Josh Bradford are remarkably successful at re-creating the spare environs of the show's first black-box space. The hanging bare light bulbs and beat-up industrial metal chairs have been retained, and we still feel like we are in the room as the Mattachine Society comes cautiously to life. On the gay smorgasbord that currently constitutes the New York theatrical scene, "The Temperamentals"—smart, passionate, and focused—is the tastiest and most satisfying item on the menu. Presented by Daryl Roth, Stacy Shane, Martian Entertainment at New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St., NYC. Opened Feb. 21 for an open run. Mon., Thu., and Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 and 7 p.m. (212) 239-6200, (800) 432-7250, or www.telecharge.com. Casting by Stephanie Klapper Casting. |
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