| re: the show was very clearly not written about a female experience, nor does it need to be | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 11:22 pm EST 12/15/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 11:16 pm EST 12/15/21 | |
| In reply to: re: the show was very clearly not written about a female experience, nor does it need to be - Delvino 05:54 pm EST 12/11/21 | |
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| I actually think you're assuming and projecting a lot of what the "Bobby is actually gay" take would mean. Being in the closet and confused about your sexuality is not the same thing as saying all gay men are promiscuous bunnies who can't commit or don't know what being alive means. You can't put onto a closeted unattached "straight" man what openly gay and partnered people know/are. Consider the premise that the show, and the friends, and Bobby, at the beginning of the show, discuss Bobby and his situation as if he were a straight single man because that is the life he lives and currently wants. That doesn't mean it's true, that it's not a cover - that doesn't mean he's not hiding from himself/his truth. Trust me, I was this version of Bobby. There are men who haven't come to terms with being gay who try to date women (some even marry them) or have actual sex, or awkward sex or good sex or both with women. Who try to convince themselves that they are straight, or straight enough to live a successful straight life... and that being "afraid of commitment" is about wanting to not be tied down. In this version, "Marry Me a Little" rings VERY true in the fantasy a lot of closeted men (and I mean closeted as lying to themselves as much or more than lying to others, closeted doesn't only mean knowing you're gay but not acting on it or announcing it) have about what marrying a woman can be... a part-way marriage of two people, an arrangement of friends who love each other and have a compatibility and even spark together (even sometimes leading to sex). Marry Me a Little is also "let ME marry YOU a little". And then "Being Alive" is being willing to sacrifice safety for real connection... and *wanting* that rather than conceding to it. That is what the song is about whether the guy singing it is a straight guy continuing to be straight or a closeted guy starting to come out. But it certainly feels VERY familiar to many late-to-come-out gay men to have all their straight friends asking why they're single, when will they settle down, why can no girl make them happy, why are you ambivalent to all of these women etc, and inside part of you is screaming "Don't you know why!!?" And you just can't say it, to them or to the girls or to yourself yet. You could definitely see Company and want to yell "it's so obvious! He's gay!" If you assume they wrote the play understanding that neither the friends nor Bobby understand this fully or can put it into words yet, it doesn't seem at odds with the script and score as is. Robert being secretly gay does not presume what you have asserted it presumes. And I don't think the show says that about straight single men either. Part of why an all male modern-day Company would work, and I think work better than modern-day female Bobbie or or modern-day straight Bobby, is because I think being a single gay man *today* at 35 or 40, with gay marriage real and legal and common, and heteronormative ideals always taking hold or being debated as part of gay life/love, is a very similar to what Company paints as the experience of a single straight man at 35 in 1970. My experience at 35, 36, 37, as a single gay man with many of my gay friends being partnered and married, and wondering why I'm not, and me wondering why I'm not... I think where we are at now is where straights were then. The themes, the scenes, from the premise of Someone Is Waiting (with Bobby going through the potential of the friends he's slept with or dated or just considered as an option potentially, and wondering if he let them get away now that they're settled with their current partner)... to the couple who breaks up to stay together, the open relationships, the 3 different boyfriends (April, Marta, Kathy) etc... the relationship to the gay male equivalent of Joanne... to Bobby's struggle to connect to someone else and want to be vulnerable to have that, to value that over the value of variety and having few or no strings attached... it ALL works, and works much better, fits more comfortably, with gay men than it does to current day straight men (35 is no longer the age when all straight men are married and settled, or expected to be) or current day women. I'm talking the specific of this play with these songs, not the general idea of that being single at 35 is complicated. Anyway, I hope one day I'll get to mount my dream gay production of Company. |
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