PURE Captures Contrasts of “Next Fall”
A DRAMA that smoothly incorporates lots and lots of humor—the laugh-out-loud kind—is difficult to write, direct and act. The Tony-nominated “Next Fall” by Geoffrey Nauffts is just that, a deadly serious piece that maintains a tone not at all serious, except when it needs to. That is its strength and its power.
PURE Theatre’s second offering of their ninth season, which opened last week at their new home at 477 King Street and runs through December 3, has been drawing record crowds. Friday night, the chill did not keep anyone away; it warmed the cockles of my heart to see extra chairs being added to accommodate the overflow.
Part of the magic and miracle of PURE’s founders, Sharon Graci and Rodney Lee Rogers, is their ongoing search to find and use actors who seem born to play the roles in which they are cast. After an active career in Chicago theater, Brannen Daugherty makes his Charleston debut, drawing a finely-honed, utterly convincing Luke, a wanna-be actor who works at various jobs in New York until he gets his big break. Also no stranger to professional theater, Michael Catangay makes his first PURE appearance in a dead-on portrayal of Adam, an almost-forty gay man with unrelieved anxiety and frustration over everything about his life.
But we know nothing of this as the play opens with several unidentified people miming daily activities, talking on a cell phone, walking a dog. Such a clever way to introduce us to these seemingly random characters, all of whom, it develops, are linked by their relationships with Luke. Shortly, three of these characters are sitting about some sort of waiting room. A psychiatrist’s office? An audition call? The airport? Soon enough, we learn that the three are getting acquainted in a hospital, waiting for news of Luke. Lucille Keller as Luke’s birth mother Arlene wise-cracks her way to establishing herself as a life-long genuine eccentric, divorced from Luke’s father, Butch. Evan Parry, in another of his astute characterizations, as Butch, storms into the scene, complaining loudly ofManhattandrivers, including the ambulance guys. Ah.
In the first of a series of intricately woven flashbacks, Adam meets Luke, “waiter catering” at a party celebrating the anniversary of a member of Overeaters Anonymous. Opportunities for laugh lines abound, yet are not gratuitous: Each jibe adds bits and pieces to our understanding of the natures of Adam; his boss Holly, the young owner of a candle shop (the perfectly-cast Katie Huard); and the witty, smiling Luke, who instantly projects an air of confidence, of happiness with his lot, despite his current lowly position.
The contrast between Adam’s angst and Luke’s serene contentment becomes a well-defined theme in their first sexual encounter which leads to a five-year relationship—until Luke’s auto accident in which he is critically injured. Luke’s devout Christianity and absolute belief in the Rapture remains a contentious subject between the two. The hypocrisy between strong religious belief and acceptance of homosexuality is masterfully revealed by Butch, when he surprises Luke with a visit to Luke’sNew Yorkapartment he shares with Adam, determined not to acknowledge that his son is gay, purposefully using pejorative words to make his prejudicial opinion painfully clear. Reinforcing this dichotomy is Bible-toting Brandon, Michael Smallwood providing a forceful presence in an almost-silent role, until we learn he is Luke’s emotionally torn ex-partner.
“Next Fall” (a title rife with multiple symbolic meanings) explores thorny themes, including the status of gay men in a committed relationship when, for example, access to a hospital room is limited to “family.” Should gay men always “come out” openly and honestly as Adam urges Luke to do, when Dad considers his son’s lifestyle a sin? All Adam wants is assurance that Luke “loves me more than him“…or Him? Even these profound questions are cloaked in humor, an element which is suddenly missing in a searing denouement. All the people in Luke’s life undergo a sea change, with Keller delivering perhaps the most affecting transformation and Parry carrying off a moment of high drama, as heart-rending as it is convincing, stunning the audience to silence.
Graci’s direction is intelligent, smooth, and sensitive. She has her actors function as set-changers with added whimsy, as they dance, wiggle their butts, pirouette with props between scenes. Some audience members considered this inappropriate for this play, but I thought it carried out the sense of humor that imbues the writing.
While no “Our Town,” which is referenced perhaps too many times in Nauffts’ script, this work, which the playwright terms a ‘memory play’, effectively reflects the inevitability of loss and the transcendent power of love as in Thornton Wilder’s masterpiece.
Chalk up another victory for this company, which never fails to entertain with provocative professional theater for the enjoyment of their burgeoning audiences.
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