| The hole in the middle of this "Boys in the Band" | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 08:27 pm EDT 06/20/18 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 08:23 pm EDT 06/20/18 | |
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| For me, is the Parsons Michael. At the matinee today, he had moments, the sharpened Crowley retort, the initial very precise attack on the telephone game dynamic. I see flashes of a potentially cohesive performance, scenes that have a stinging clarity. But he doesn't really get inside this man. His central relationship in the play isn't with Donald, of course, to whom he confesses a great deal; it's with Harold. But he never connects fully enough with Quinto. Quinto, to be fair, channels a lot of iconic Frey, but doesn't take the role much in his own direction. He smokes a lot of cigarettes -- as many as Midler smoked in the same house as Sue Mengers -- and lands most of the zingers in a basso pitch. But that telling moment when Michael and Harold find themselves with real emotional intimacy -- when he opens the framed photo -- is too quick, and without the underpinnings. We should feel overriding stakes in the Michael-Harold war. These men need one another, despite everything. They are the George and Martha in this play. But that dynamic disappears as soon as it surfaces. Everyone else is fine, and De Jesus far more than that. Emory emerges as the heroic character for me, oddly enough. We see the bruised boy who has endured a lifetime of bullying and cruel teasing. Yet he's a real adult, and he owns who he is. The Emory portion of the telephone game could easily lapse into bathos. De Jesus makes it a kind of stand: Emory takes full ownership of his emotional life. The entire Booth house leans forward to listen to his backstory, and the attention is earned. De Jesus offers the performance of this production. The staging overall has strengths, Mantello has managed to make the seamless, uninterrupted playing work wonderfully. And the play feels sturdy and honest for the era in which these men lived (we have to remember: they were born circa 1940). if anything, the play is more remarkable now for its unwillingness to tie everyone up in a neat bow. And what I learned: no one allows Michael to get away with projecting his own well of unworthiness onto them. If only we had compelling protagonist to drive the evening, who might make Michael's inability to stop himself from brutalizing others terrifying and moving. It just feels bitchy here, and then slightly self-indulgent. To me, Michael's offensive acting out is always about not knowing love. He creates a game that exposes the hole in Michael, no one else. I wanted Harold's exit line to finally show us how tethered these men are to one another. But it feels too late. Missed opportunity. |
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