In the third and most successful act of Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy, now playing at Suncoast Theatre, female impersonator Arnold Beckoff faces off against his widowed, opinionated mother and angrily insists that he is definitively gay. This is something that Mrs. Beckoff has known for many years, but which she is clearly never going to accept.
As she stubbornly stands her ground – reminding Arnold that his orientation made his late father "sick," or warning him against modeling a gay lifestyle for the teenager he's trying to adopt (who's also gay, though she doesn't yet know it) – we're made conscious of the tragic dimension in Arnold's life, the fundamental alienation from family and from much of straight society that no amount of patience or goodwill will ever heal.
Because Arnold's story has mostly been presented to us as light comedy, this segment's gravity surprises us; and when other revelations turn out to be equally serious, we find that Trilogy, which has dabbled in sitcom and soap opera, isn't nearly as negligible a play as we'd come to think. The Arnold of Acts One and Two was funny and ingratiating but not very important. The Arnold of Act Three has real weight, three full dimensions, and problems worthy of great drama. Finally, we have reason to be glad we're in the audience.
Not that the earlier acts aren't entertaining. Arnold in Act One ("The International Stud") is a kind of gay Woody Allen: bumbling, self-deprecating, an ingratiating victim with a one-liner for all embarrassments. We see him at a bar meeting a stranger named Ed. They start a relationship; but then it turns out that Ed is bisexual and interested in young Laurel. Abandoned by his lover, Arnold ventures for the first time into the dark backroom of a bar where group groping is the rule and names and faces are strictly irrelevant.
Here he's also out of place, as he tries to start up a conversation with the anonymous person who's masturbating him, and strives to believe afterwards that his momentary partner "really liked me." The act concludes with the return of ex-lover Ed to Arnold's life.
Ed's heterosexual relationship isn't going as well as he'd hoped; during intercourse, he finds himself thinking of Arnold.
For once, Arnold has power: Will he nurse his old injuries and throw importunate Ed out, or will he take back his straying partner, and risk losing him again to a woman? This question hardly troubles us down to our souls, but Fierstein's dialogue is vivid, some of his jokes are genuinely funny, and we can't help but want poor Arnold to choose right. Act One, we decide, is engaging, if mostly trivial, comedy.
Act Two ("Fugue in a Nursery") is also mildly pleasing. Now Ed and Laurel are back together, and she has invited Arnold and his new lover Alan out to their country house upstate. Alan, we learn, is a former prostitute who models for a comfortable living, and his genuine affection for Arnold seems to signal the latter's graduation from Schlemiel to Somebody.
But put four sexually active human beings in close proximity, and there's no telling who'll pair off. So for most of an hour we witness the mathematical possibilities – only occasionally carnal – of Arnold, Alan, Laurel and Ed, and we wonder: What is it about this play that was supposed to be so groundbreaking? The act ends, we look at our watches as we shuffle out for a second intermission, and we begin to worry that Torch Song, landmark drama though it may be, has lost something over the years.
And then Act Three ("Widows and Children First") starts and finally here's the stuff of stirring drama. Arnold is a "widow" now – Alan has been killed by gay-bashing teenagers with baseball bats. He's also acting as foster parent to much-abused 15-year-old David, whom he hopes to adopt once a trial period is complete.
To complicate matters further, Ed has left Laurel (yet again) and is staying as a houseguest in Arnold's apartment. Into this small crowd comes Arnold's mother, opinions blazing – and the results are very funny and frequently deeply troubling.
True, there are still elements of sitcom in Ma's rhythms – it's apparently challenging these days to write a Jewish mother who's not a stereotype – but there's a world of significance in Arnold's refusal to be closeted, Ma's anger and shame at the life her son is leading, David's comfort with his own sexuality, and Ed's confusion as to where his satisfaction truly lies.
If all of Torch Song Trilogy had been written at this level, the play might rank with, say, Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion! as a meditation on gay themes. But Act Three is so satisfying, and the questions it asks are still so up to date, we find ourselves not minding the details of the journey. Yes, Trilogy is long – almost four hours with intermissions – but in the end it pays off, amply, abundantly.
On the way, we've found something to enjoy in the acting. Larry Buzzeo turns in solid work as Arnold, though he lacks the charisma that this starring role seems to demand. As Alan, Charles McTague is just right from the first moment, but as on-again off-again Ed, Joe Johnson takes a while to win our credulity.
Joleen Wilkinson has two roles: she's "Lady Blues," who punctuates the first act with torch songs, and Laurel, Ed's love, in the fugue that's Act Two. Her singing is unspectacular – although she nearly wins us over with "Cry Me A River" – but her acting is superb, and Laurel easily gains our sympathy.
Christian Mayer plays young David as a goofy jokester who can't stop grinning, and Brick as Mrs. Beckoff reminds us of Carol Burnett in an ill-fitting wig; still, she knows how to hurt. Finally Bill Bryant as Max the piano player provides an elegant musical backdrop that lends resonance to the onstage action.
Dave Thomas' direction is especially impressive in Act Two (the game of revolving bedfellows), and Thomas and Trevor Keller's set, consisting primarily of a steeply angled natural-wood floor, is one of the most attractive I've ever seen in a Gypsy Productions staging. Chris Glasgow's costumes are in every case felicitous.
So that, then, is the shape of it: Act Three is rewarding, and Torch Song Trilogy still matters. Arnold Beckoff is more than a gay comedian; he's an aspiring, suffering human being contending with issues of real import. He has something to teach, and he refuses to be stifled.
It takes a while for him to get there. Three acts, to be exact.
As it turns out, it's worth the wait.
This article appears in May 12-18, 2005.
