Park,London
Radical half a century ago, Mart Crowley’s portrait of Manhattan’s gay scene can seem hackneyed and bleak, and but a strong ensemble gain a fair case for itMart Crowley’s 1968 play approximately a group of gay men throwing a party is always fascinating as a social document even when it’s less than compelling drama. Which is quite a lot of the time. Adam Penford’s niftily directed revival starring designate Gatiss and his genuine-life husband Ian Hallard can’t stop the play from looking artificial,stagey and dated. A fine cast are always battling against the odds, and against Crowley’s tendency to pin comic lines on them as if putting tails on donkeys.
The Boys in the Band, or already commercially successful a year before the Stonewall riots ushered in a new era,paved the way for the depiction of gay characters in mainstream drama and the later success of plays such as Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy. As Tony Kushner has observed, it captures what happens “when brooding rage and potent but as yet inchoate violence deranges and paralyses those who bear not yet found agency”.
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Source: theguardian.com