Copyright © 2012 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s
Newsmagazine • All rights reserved
PHOTO: Matt McGrath
and Stewart Calhoun in Next Fall. (Photo by Ken Jacques; courtesy
Diversionary Theatre.)
“What do you believe?” asks a large piece of white paper hung in
the lobby of Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Boulevard in University Heights,
with a wide variety of names of religious denominations or schools of thought
so both believers and non-believers can write their answers to the question
near the appropriate label. It’s an interesting way to present their current
production, Geoffrey Nauffts’ Next Fall, a comedy-drama in which a life-threatening injury to one of the
characters brings together almost all the important people in his life, and a
series of flashbacks shows the burgeoning relationship between Adam (Matt
McGrath) and Luke (Stewart Calhoun) and how, despite what would seem to be an
insurmountable difference of faith, it lasted four years and was almost
literally “till death do us part.”
As the play
opens, Nauffts introduces us to the characters in Luke’s families, both
biological and chosen: his friend Brandon (Tony Houck), whose function in the
story doesn’t become clear until midway through the second act; Holly (Jacque
Wilke), his employer and essentially his mother confessor; his talk-a-minute
mother Arlene (Shana Wride), who seems to have wandered in from one of Carol
Burnett’s or Leslie Jordan’s Southern-fried parodies; his overbearing father
Butch (John Whitley); and, eventually, Adam. Nauffts’ script requires almost
cinematic changes between past and present — between the grim reality that the
characters have been brought together by Luke’s near-death in an auto crash and
the lighthearted reminiscences of his and Adam’s past — vividly executed by
director James Vasquez and set designer Matt Scott, even though the swinging
panels require the actors themselves to be their own stagehands for many of the
scene changes.
We soon learn
that, as well as they got along in virtually every other conceivable respect,
there was one unbridgeable gap between Adam and Luke that never got resolved.
Adam was raised in a non-religious household and, while he isn’t actively anti-religious, he never had any particular use for, or
interest in, faith or spiritual matters in general. Luke is not only a
born-and-raised Christian, he’s had his own born-again experience and he
believes in the entire evangelical package, from salvation by faith alone (he
and Adam get into an argument over whether Matthew Shepard’s murderers can ever
be redeemed) to the literal truth of the Rapture. (Adam jokes that the thought
of an airline pilot being whisked out of the cockpit and transported to heaven
in mid-flight makes him even more scared of flying than he ever was before.)
Adam picks up on this the first time he and Luke have sex — when he notices
Luke praying for forgiveness afterwards.
Luke found his
own personal salvation long after his father and mother broke up and dad raised
him as a single parent until he remarried — Luke’s stepmother remains off-stage
and is the only member of his family we don’t meet, or even learn much about. His accident brings his dad and his
biological mother back together and just reawakens the tensions that split them
apart in the first place. They’re as one, though, in their reflexive
condemnation of homosexuality and refusal to believe that their son could be
one of those people.
Next Fall is a play full of hidden depths, and it’s a
testament to Nauffts’ skill as a playwright that his script manages to be
emotionally, morally and spiritually complex without getting preachy. Plot-wise
it has some similarities to the film Latter Days — also about the unlikely love affair between a
non-religious man and a born-and-raised believer in a homophobic religion — but
Next Fall is richer because it
treats the parents with love and sympathy instead of presenting them as campy
caricatures. For a Queer theatergoer of a certain age, it’s nice to see a play
that opens with a Gay man in a hospital for reasons that have nothing to do with AIDS — indeed, Nauffts kids that when he
has Adam ask Luke if he remembers the height of the AIDS terror, and Luke
calmly fires back, “I was eight” — and it’s also welcome, if somewhat
perplexing, that whatever Luke’s issues with his family are, the prospect of
them clapping him into a “reparative therapy” center to try to burn or
brainwash the Gay out of him isn’t one of them.
Even the title —
Luke’s response when Adam pushes him to come out to his parents — is a subtle
allusion to the truth that we make plans for the future and often put off
distasteful tasks, only sometimes fate throws us a curveball and there isn’t
going to be a “next fall” for us at all. Next Fall is a cannily written play, the potential grimness of
its subject matter relieved by a sly wit, and even when Nauffts wants to get on
a Queer-rights soapbox he figures out a way to do it without hammering home the
point. When Luke’s parents are allowed to enter his room during a critical
point in his care and Adam is told, “Family only,” we feel the anguish as he
turns away in sadness in a far deeper and more moving way than we would have if
Nauffts had had him get angry and make an “I’m ‘family,’ damn it!” speech.
For the most
part, Diversionary has treated this jewel box of a play well, though there’s a
rather odd flaw in the production. Matt McGrath (coming to this production from
a far different role, Dr. Frank N. Furter in the Old Globe’s production of The
Rocky Horror Show) and Stewart Calhoun are
both first-rate actors, and as individuals they’re well cast in their roles —
though McGrath is too young-looking to be believable as the anxiety-ridden
40-year-old he’s supposed to be playing. But the chemistry between him and
Calhoun seems a bit “off.” It’s not that they’re not credible as a couple, but
they make what divides them seem a lot more believable than what unites them.
Other than that,
though, Diversionary’s production of Next Fall is well cast. John Whitley’s Butch stands out; like Nauffts’ script,
the actor’s reading keeps the character from becoming caricature and makes us
understand and even sympathize with him. Shana Wride’s Arlene is effective and
fun in what amounts to a 1930’s-Hollywood style comic-relief role. Jacque
Wilke’s Holly is credible as a good-buddy to the dysfunctional family-by-choice
she has (or had) working for her, and the height of her performance is reached
when she dead-pans, “Can fag-hags get to Heaven?” Tony Houck’s Brandon has
little to do throughout the play until the big scene that lets us know who he
is, what he wants, how he’s accommodated his beliefs and his desires and what
that’s cost him, which Houck nails.
Other than the
actors, the star of Next Fall is Matt Scott’s
set (Diversionary artistic director Bret Young and Dangerfield G. Moore get
co-credit with Scott for “scenic construction”), which director James Vasquez
uses effectively to keep the action flowing smoothly from present to past and
back. Sound designer Kevin Anthenill, a Diversionary regular, has considerably
less to do than he’s had on some recent productions (on Edward II he actually got to provide an original score!) but
he’s managed to dig up some appropriately atrocious dance records. Michelle Caron’s
lighting subtly communicates the shifting places and times, and Shirley
Pierson’s costumes — which practically had to be breakaway, given how fast the
time changes — are appropriate (and the fact that we get to see both Matt
McGrath and Stewart Calhoun in their underwear a lot adds to the aesthetic
appeal of this show!).
Next Fall is the latest in a quite remarkable run of
Diversionary productions. It’s the sort of script they do well: the Queer
content is at the heart of the play but it’s not didactic, and director
Vasquez, his cast and crew are in tune with the play’s subtlety and make it
well worth seeing.
Next Fall plays through March 25 at Diversionary Theatre,
4545 Park Boulevard in University Heights. Performances are 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat.,
2 and 7 p.m. on Sun. General admission $31 Thurs. & Sun., $33 Fri. &
Sat. For tickets or more information, call (619) 220-0097 or visit www.diversionary.org
on the Web.
