Some Men

Critiqued by Holly Bartges

Historically significant, Terrance McNally’s play Some Men comes to life in its Regional Premier under the direction of Steven Tangedal on Theatre On Broadway’s stage at the New Civic Theatre’s Black Box.

Cast of Some Men Photo courtesy of Theatre On Broadway

Yes, it is a truth it was an abbreviated run. Yes, it is a truth this review should have been up three weeks ago. On bended knee before God and everyone, I can only apologize for the necessary delay. Legalities involving the Settlement with the Coca Cola Company for the 2006 accident with the Coke Delivery man in Albertson’s ate up time and energy.

Some plays are written to entertain, some written to provide perspective, some written to provoke thought, some written to educate. Some Men falls into the category of all four. Tracing the history of changes in the Gay Life Style from 1953 to the present, Some Men through the freedom of change and change of freedom features eight characters in thoughtful progression.

Some Men opens and closes during the wedding, sending the guests into a spin recalling their own journeys into a mature Gay life style, including fears, anxieties, celebrations, bruised and confused self esteem, and changes in relationships.

Some Men needs to be experienced, and there is time.

The talented cast features David Ballew, Preston Lee Britton, Todd Colter, Arthur Martinez, Stephen Nye, Joey Santos, Kyle Stockburger and Joseph Downs.

Tangedal’s eerie lighting wondrously plays into the myriad of emotions capturing the characters in various states of mind throughout the decades. His simple set design allows for the imagination to move into the Waldorf Astoria, a funeral home, Sur la Mer in South Hampton, an athletic club, a New York City West Village bar, the Continental Baths, St Vincent’s Hospital, and Washington Square Park.

Some Men did get off to a rough start with one of the cast members combating pneumonia. There is something to the idiom that the show must go on, but there is also a hidden truth that speaks to a wait-a-minute thought that the health and welfare of a human being becomes far more important than anything else. Rough starts, however, don’t really mean a thing. “The message is the massage”, Some Men deserves some attention just because the message stands up to vital importance because of its profound perspective from where the Gay world has come and where it needs go. Our society prides itself on the value of Human Rights, often forgetting Human Rights belongs to every member of the human race; not just a select few.

Romping on a beach Kyle and Joey as a well heeled Banker and his Irish chauffeur agonize over wanting to spend as much time together as they can, daring not to think about marriage, yet wanting what marriage has to offer, wanting to spend as much time together as they possibly can. The question, of course, is how?

Stephen and Kyle meet in a room at the Waldorf in 1968. Stephen, nervous, unsure is married to Susan pretending to be something he isn’t. Struggling to find his way, he announces his name is Bob, only to admit his real name is Bernie. Susan found a hidden magazine. Bernie laments “I want to wake up in the morning and look forward to the day, wanting to love someone like I wanted to love Susan”.

Cast in Some Men

Todd and Arthur in 2006 takes the audience to the JDS Funeral Chapel where a soldier presents a folded American Flag to a grieving father who mumbles, “What angers me, he never met that special person”.

In between scenarios George Pulver’s Sound design relates the time period by radio and television announcements. There’s the voice of CBS newscaster Walter Cronkite, George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, the 1969 never-to-be-forgotten “one small step for man…”, Dan Rather, and the report of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky pinpointing specific times in American society.

Themed throughout is the concept of marriage, once never thought about, and yet the nagging desires for close, intimate, honest relationships creep into the dark and lighthearted scenarios. Despair and confusion walk hand in hand with humorous sidelines. Stereotypical thinking parades from blackout to blackout giving way to honest laughter. Stereotypes point in the direction of truths locked in a self-endowed box where truths get snuffed because the box is too small.

Throughout the scenarios Stephen’s Bernie finds strength and courage to embrace the Gay life along with the agony of divorcing Susan, facing the reality his kids won’t have anything to do with him.

At the Christopher Street Bar in New York’s West Village, Ballew plays a grim, uptight bartender desperately insisting the guys in the bar don’t sit or stand too close, and for Heaven sakes don’t touch each other. The guys are there for a good time while their silly “queen-ness” flies haphazardly around the room. Outside a riot breaks out. Police swarm, as the Stonewall uprising in 1969 slowly begins to invade the psyches of the devil-may- care-queenly strutting inside the bar.

In 1989 within the starkness of St. Vincent Hospital Ballew’s character, Gary, faces the illness of his partner, dying of what was to become AIDS.

In 1998 Stephen’s Bernie has been with his partner, Carl (Joey) for 14 years, and are being interviewed by two young Gay reporters (Todd and Kyle) who have no clue what Bernie and Carle have lived through, no clue that the freedom they’re able to exercise came from a long history of closeted agony and courage. The reporters grow bored with the older ones. The scene includes some very funny lines punctuated by a startling reality of ignorance. Ignorance, it seems, doesn’t know gender differences.

McNally stretching through his brilliance of “wisdomed” perspective perception combines humor, giddiness, with a thoughtful probing mind of a growing society that has come a long way toward reaching acceptance as well as accepting themselves to be comfortable in their own skin. Historically Some Men stands tall in significance. It demands to be seen, probed as it probes, pondered as it ponders, absorbed as it absorbs,

Take advantage of its one last chance. You may not like what you see and hear. Part of it may even make you squirm. If we only fed our imagination with what makes us comfortable, imagination would still be wearing diapers.

Some Men
By Terrence McNally;
Directed by Steven Tangedal