Jim Parsons, left, Robin De Jesus, Michael Benjamin Washington and Andrew Rannells are among the cast of "The Boys in the Band."
When Mart Crowleys The Boys in the Band, the granddaddy of gay plays, first appeared off-Broadway, it offered an inside peek into what had been consigned to the shadows: gay male life as it is experienced outside the closet.
The characters in this 1968 drama, New York friends gathered for a birthday celebration, slurp cocktails, trade bitchy repartee, assemble into a chorus line, flirt, flame out and throw fits. The psychodrama is relentless, but no one commits suicide, the traditional end for homosexuals in plays and movies, so it was considered progress.
A year after The Boys in the Band debuted on stage, the Stonewall riots would usher in the gay liberation movement. As groundbreaking as Crowleys play was in bringing visibility to a subculture that was ridiculed when not being ignored, the work was already being dismissed as retrograde by the time the film version came out in 1970.
Crowleys campy wisecracks resounded in gay bars across America for years, but an ambivalence prevailed. Between the indulgence of flamboyant stereotypes and the internalized homophobia of Michael, the alcoholic protagonist and psychological arsonist, the drama only seemed to compound unflattering caricatures.
Rated R: For sexual content, language, some graphic nudity and drug use
Where: Netflix
**** (out of 5)
But Crowley was actually condemning society for making love between men the dirtiest secret of all. Vito Russo went so far as to declare in The Celluloid Closet, his irreplaceable 1981 book on homosexuality in the movies, that The Boys in the Band made the best and most potent argument for gay liberation ever offered in a popular art form.
As I texted my gay BFF after watching the new Netflix version of The Boys in the Band, which reunites the cast of Joe Mantellos Tony-winning 2018 Broadway revival, I realized Crowleys landmark work is both dated and eternal, a period piece that still has something urgent to say. The conditions have improved for LGBTQ people in the last half-century, but discrimination and homophobia persist. Crowleys work maps out the internalization of this toxic brew of intolerance, the way it seeps into the fabric of gay identity and corrodes from within.
With a screenplay by Crowley and Ned Martel, this handsome remake is directed by Mantello at an entertaining clip. Jim Parsons stars as Michael, the host of the all-male soiree who tries to conceal his self-hatred under Hermes cashmere that still isnt paid off. Zachary Quinto plays Harold, the birthday boy who forthrightly describes himself as a 32-year-old, ugly, pock-marked Jew fairy, making clear that no one, not even sharp-tongued Michael, is going to be able to wound him with a cutting remark.
Lighting up a joint as he settles into the festive turbulence, Harold presides as a choral counterweight, parrying Michaels caustic thrusts with his own savage truths. Michael has fallen off the wagon after a surprise visit from his supposedly straight college friend, Alan (played with sorrowful gruffness by Brian Hutchison). Agitated and embarrassed, Michael unleashes his rancor on his guests in a manner that could give Martha a run for her money in Edward Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a palpable influence on Crowleys drama.
The hostility in The Boys in the Band is not only ugly but also dramatically confining. Michaels viciousness loses some of its psychological nuance when it kicks into high gear. The character begins to resemble a plot device as he works feverishly to intensify the static situation of a birthday party gone awry.
Parsons doesnt always seem perfectly cast, but he gives us a powerful glimpse of Michaels horror of aging, when, catching sight of himself in the mirror, he turns his head as though he were a vampire sensing glimmers of dawn. He subtly connects Michaels accommodating friendship with Alan, who makes no bones about his distaste for male effeminacy, to Michaels own self-loathing. Yet the behavior of this divided, semi-lapsed Catholic gay man grows contrived when hes awash in gin. Crowleys somewhat monotonous writing needs more subtle delineation in performance.
One advantage of the original Boys in the Band film, directed by William Friedkin (who would go on to direct a slightly less scary movie called The Exorcist), is that the actors were not widely known, making it easy to mistake the originators of the roles for their characters. Mantellos starry cast doesnt allow for the same confusion.
Beyond the marquee names of Parsons and Quinto, this deluxe Ryan Murphy-produced offering features the recognizable faces of Andrew Rannells, who plays sexually prolific Larry, and Matt Bomer, who brings a chiseled beauty and hushed grace (along with a flash of nakedness) to Donalds neurotic dithering.
Michael Benjamin Washington lends bookish Bernard a poignant dignity as the character shrugs off a battery of racist put-downs. As the Cowboy, one of Harolds birthday presents, Charlie Carver imbues the slow-witted hustler with an affectionate sweetness that only throws into relief Michaels gratuitous cruelty.
Any revival of The Boys in the Band is forced to recognize the lingering traces of the past in the present. The film, dedicated to Crowley, who died this year, beautifully summons a vintage gay New York that was building inexorably to Stonewall.
If some of the character subtleties get lost in the drunken shuffle, Mantellos dedicated company honors the communal bonds that have transformed characters from such different backgrounds into a family. These raucous friends inhabit Michaels stylish apartment as if its their home too. And they bear with one another because they understand the rage of backlogged pain.
Perhaps the most remembered line from the play is Michaels desperate crack at the end: Who was it that used to always say, You show me a happy homosexual, and Ill show you a gay corpse. But the most moving is Harolds parting remark to Michael, spoken after pointing out the self-hatred at the root of his friends animosity: Call you tomorrow.
Charles McNulty Los Angeles Times
Read more here:
Review: Parsons, Quinto, Bomer bring the Band party to Netflix - Houston Chronicle
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