The Boys in the Band (play)
| The Boys in the Band | |
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 Poster for the 1996 off-Broadway revival |
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| Written by | Mart Crowley |
| Characters | Hank Alan Bernard Cowboy Michael Harold Emory Donald |
| Date premiered | April 14, 1968 |
| Place premiered | Theatre Four New York City, New York |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Drama |
The Boys in the Band is a play by Mart Crowley. The off-Broadway production, directed by Robert Moore, opened on April 14, 1968 at Theater Four,[1] where it ran for 1,001 performances, an extremely healthy run for both an off-Broadway production, and one not geared to a mainstream audience. The cast included Kenneth Nelson as Michael, Peter White as Alan, Leonard Frey as Harold, Cliff Gorman as Emory, Frederick Combs as Donald, Laurence Luckinbill as Hank, Keith Prentice as Larry, Robert La Tourneaux as Cowboy, and Reuben Greene as Bernard.
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[edit] Plot synopsis
It is set in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where six of Harold's closest friends are throwing him a birthday party. One of Harold's presents is "Cowboy", an attractive but obviously unintelligent male prostitute, since Harold, increasingly morose about losing his youthful looks, claims he no longer can attract cute young men. The other characters are Michael, the host and a lapsed Roman Catholic alcoholic undergoing psychoanalysis; Donald, a conflicted friend who has moved from the city to spurn the homosexual "lifestyle;" Bernard, an African-American who still pines for the wealthy white boy in the house where his mother worked as a maid; Emory, who is extremely flamboyant and the most stereotypical of the group; and Larry, an aggressively sexual homosexual and Hank, who "passes" as straight, a couple living together but disagreeing on the issue of monogamy. An unexpected party guest is Alan, Michael's allegedly straight college friend, who is in town and anxious to tell Michael something—but hesitant to do so when he sees the group.
During the party the self-deprecating humor takes a nasty turn as the nine men become increasingly inebriated. The party culminates in a game where each man must call someone and tell him he loves him. Michael, believing that Alan has finally "outed" himself when he makes his call, is stunned to discover it is Alan's wife on the line when he grabs the phone away from Alan. The audience never learns what Alan intended to discuss with Michael, but is left with the possibility that his decision to reveal his homosexuality was averted by his repulsion for the behavior he witnessed throughout the evening.
[edit] Productions
According to Crowley's friend Gavin Lambert, actress Natalie Wood, who sympathized with Hollywood's gay scene, financially supported Crowley, himself a homosexual, so he would be free to write his play.[2] The playwright, who first met her while working as a production assistant on the movie Splendor in the Grass, worked as an assistant for Wood and her husband Robert Wagner for many years.
The Boys in the Band was staged by Playbox Theatre, Melbourne, in June 1969, having been brought to Australia by theatrical entrepreneur Harry M Miller. The staging resulted in three actors who had performed in the play, John Krummell, John Norman and Charles Little being charged by the Victorian Police Vice Squad with using obscene language in a public place. The Magistrate who heard the charge found the charges proved but then dismissed them on the grounds they were 'trifling.' The Vice Squad successfully appealed to the Supreme Court, with Justice Little ruling in September 1969 that "In my opinion the offence of obscene language in a public place cannot be regarded as of a trivial or minor nature." The case of The Boys in the Band was an important step in the breaking down of Australia's archaic censorship laws.
An all-lesbian production of The Boys in the Band was staged by of members of the Australasian Lesbian Movement in 1972.
The play had a brief revival at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village in 1996,[1] and in 2002, the sequel, The Men from the Boys premiered in San Francisco,[3] and was produced in Los Angeles the following year.[4] The play was revived in 2010 in a site specific location in Manhattan by Transport Group Theatre Company under the direction of Jack Cummings III. The production received five Drama Desk Award nominations.
After a two year hiatus, a new student production at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge is underway, opening 14th February 2012 and running for one week.
[edit] Adaptation
In 1970, it was adapted for a motion picture directed by William Friedkin.
[edit] Soundtrack
In 1969 a 2-disc vinyl LP set was released. It contained the full dialogue of the play as voiced by the original actors.
[edit] Sequel
Matt Crowley's sequel to The Boys in the Band was entitled The Men From The Boys.
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Lortel Archives listing". http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&title=The%20Boys%20in%20the%20Band. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
- ^ Jaques, Damien (1998-05-31). "'Boys in Band' returns to stage, tamer now but still honest, witty". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4196/is_19980531/ai_n10425555. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
- ^ Roca, Octavio (2002-10-26). "'Boys' to 'Men': Mart Crowley's latest play takes 'Boys in the Band' through the past 30 years". TheSan Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/26/DD55988.DTL. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
- ^ Hitchcock, Laura (2003-08-03). "Men From the Boys". CurtainUp. http://www.curtainup.com/menfromtheboys.html. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
[edit] Further reading
- Lambert, Gavin (2005). Natalie Wood: A Life (First edition ed.). Backstage Books. ISBN 0823088294.
