Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song @ Uptown Players

—Martha Heimberg

We’ve come a long way, Arnold.

Thanks to Uptown Players for a witty, heart-rending production of the recently revised (and shorter) version of Harvey Fierstein’s semi-autobiographical Torch Song Trilogy, first staged Off-Off Broadway in 1978. Trilogy broke ground and opened the path for a series of other award-winning gay dramas (Angels in America, Take Me Out) that engaged wider audiences both in New York and around the nation. 

Not just a history lesson in our society’s tangled, tortured and always fascinated view of the gay lifestyle, the condensed Torch Song—it played on Broadway in 2018—is directed for Uptown with style and warmth by Cheryl Denson. This is terrific, funny, honest theater. The normalcy of gay relationships is now so widely accepted it is easy to forget the struggles of the AIDS crisis, the gay pride movement, and the ongoing work by activists in the LGBTQ+ community.

 Arnold Beckhoff (a vulnerable Phillip Cole White) is at the center of the story—a New York drag queen with a grand presence, wisecracking armor, and a lifelong wish to have a husband to love, a kid to scold, and a pair of bunny slippers to slide into when those stiletto heels come off at the end of the show. He falls hard for virile Ed (a conflicted Leroy Hood), a bisexual teacher who won’t commit. Arnold quips, “A thing of beauty is a joy till sunrise.” But he hurts when dithering, waffling Ed is away.

When Ed won’t answer the phone forever, Arnold retreats to a murky backroom bar, where he has a sudden below-the-waist encounter with an invisible stranger, while we watch his orgasmic and hilarious reaction at table-top height. White’s agile face and body reflect Arnold’s nervy excitement and real terror. We laugh, but feel the sad loneliness that drove him to anonymous sex.

Later, Arnold goes to visit now-married Ed and his sexy wife Laurel (a willful Elizabeth Kensek). He brings along his new male model boyfriend (a playful, game Paul Bond). Elizabeth just wants to balance the table – or the bed, as it were. The maneuvering of all four actors on the huge bed stage at center stage is physically challenging farce. True, the writhing bodies shifting positions under the same blanket is slapstick funny, but also a little desperate all round.

In the second act,  Arnold’s stylish and overbearing Jewish mother (a commanding Diane Box Worman in pumped-up domestic fight mode) comes to visit just when he’s trying to adopt a 16-year-old boy, David  (skinny, sarcastic, perfect young Max Rudelman). Worman and White are fiery sparring partners as the disappointed mom and the queer son who craves her love and respect. Both are pros at knowing how to land a smart-ass crack or a painful punch line.  As David remarks to Arnold the wanna-be Dad, after his own rocky encounter with Ma: “I see where you got your technique.”  No lie.

Donna Marquet’s supple set design brings us up close and personal: into a dressing room, a bar, a bed and a very nice apartment, thank you. Jason Foster’s lighting design is mood-enhancing and keeps us focused on the action in a talky play. Suzanne Cranford’s costumes make the gals, the guys, and everybody in between look good.

This classy production, which runs only through April 17th, earns fresh applause for the entire ensemble—and will bring back so many memories.  Not to miss. 

WHEN: Through April 17th

WHERE: Uptown Players (@ the Kalita Humphreys Theatre)

WEB: uptownplayers.org