A Grim Fairy Tale
In Vito Russo’s authoritative analysis of homosexuality in the movies, The Celluloid Closet, the 1976 film version of Norman, Is That You? is described as “the first pro-gay fag joke.” Starring Redd Foxx in the role played by Don Knotts in the New Theatre Restaurant’s production, the movie was adapted from a short-lived Broadway play that “went on to become a big dinner-theater hit, and it’s easy to see why: It plays both ends from the middle … for fear of offending someone,” Russo wrote.
That would be correct only if you’re the someone not offended by derogatory terms for gay men, such as “fairy” and “Tinkerbell”; comedic threats of violence against gays; and the depiction of women either as weak and stupid or as hookers. Feebly updated by inserting a reference to Regis Philbin, the play still has a grim revisionism at work that, by the middle of the second act, deteriorates to the point that gay men are described as dress-wearing, lisp-afflicted punch lines. A message of tolerance slinks in toward the end, but at that point too much has been inflicted to make it meaningful. It’s the kind of puzzlement that the humorless, self-righteous Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation wouldn’t know whether to embrace or repel.
In this tale of parental notification, Ben Chambers (Knotts) shows up unannounced in New York to discover his son, Norman (Larry Greer), cohabiting with Garson (Craig Benton). But it doesn’t seem to matter to director Dennis Hennessy that all of Chambers’ stereotyping is at odds with his son’s and his son’s lover’s dearth of stereotypical traits. Sure, Norman is the art director for Saks Fifth Avenue and Garson a touchy-feely family therapist, but they are as masculine as a NASCAR pit crew, caught here vainly trying to zip some life into this clunker.
Ben Chambers is a Neanderthal who has also put women down his whole life, only to become as dependent as an infant when his wife leaves him. His commentary clearly masks a lot of anger, and, perhaps in someone like Edward Albee’s hands, this anger would be insightfully excavated in a decent play. But the authors of Norman, Is That You?, Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick, have nothing but contempt for anyone onstage. Add to that the play’s lack of substance, and the fact that the first act clocks in at a mere thirty minutes is more a blessing than a curse.
Greer and Benton manage to redeem themselves brilliantly by not appearing embarrassed. Jarret Bertoncin’s set design of a smallish New York apartment adroitly swivels back and forth, depending on whether the scene needs the living room or the bedroom, and Mary Traylor’s costumes are appropriately stylish for the gay guys and frumpy for the parents (though Francey Yarborough’s plush fake fur gives her hooker character the dimensions of a linebacker). But despite these diversions, as a whole the production gives off a cash-the-check-and-run feeling.
Worldwide Wrestling: Since the world premiere of The Wrestling Season last spring at The Coterie, Laurie Brooks’ play about the mistreatment of a gay youth by his high school peers has brought some attention to its Kansas City connection. “It was a big hit in Washington [D.C.] — a lot of talk about it,” says the playwright, who, with director Jeff Church, transplanted the local cast in its entirety to the New Visions 2000 theater festival at the Kennedy Center. The script was subsequently published and has appeared in Virginia, a theater near West Palm Beach and in American Theatre magazine, where, Brooks says, “it was the first play for young audiences published in the magazine in about ten years.” Upcoming productions in Seattle and Utah, she adds, are thoughtfully following The Coterie’s method of postshow debriefing, where youth audiences engage in discussion about the behavior of the play’s characters. Brooks says, “They’re replicating the smart way Jeff partnered with the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault in Kansas City. It really legitimizes the play.”
