The announcement of the revival of Boys in the Band featuring Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, and Andrew Rannells. Co-stars will include Robin de Jesus, Brian Hutchison, Michael Benjamin Washington and Tuc Watkins. Joe Mantello at the Booth Theatre will direct the 50th anniversary production.
In the YouTube video promo bellow they speak of the work as “ground breaking” and still important.
Zach Quinto talks about an “explosion of backward thinking today” At which point I had to ask have you read the play?
The work is nothing but a tired parade of self-loathing characters fulfilling every stereotype that was prominent in the 70s and in some cases lingers today. They fulfill the straight worlds concept of the time, that queer men were sad, sex starved, self- hating alcoholics.
Matt Crowley the playwright reinforces every fear that was heaped on the community at the time, no queer man would ever find real love, happiness, or acceptance.
There is a very good reason it is almost never done, its terrible. It has become a relic of the past and should remain there.
Quinto is right there is a backward movement so why do a work that adds fuel to that fire. This is 2018 we have had some amazing works produced both film and stage that far outshine this work, and look at the queer world with open eyes.
Here is where I am fed up with the machine of Broadway and the hype that will be piled on this undeserving play.
Use your bloody imagination! Stop with the endless revivals of mediocre works.
Take a real risk, and stop being creatively lazy.
Here we have a group of queer men ready to go on stage and work, give them something to actually work with.
So much is being done elsewhere in the field of queer theatre and gender casting, look to the work of Propeller Theatre, the RSC, and the National Theatre and follow their lead.
The RSC recent production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome with a predominately male cast, there is also a re-interpretation from the National of the same work. If you must do a revival pick something that has withstood the test of time, something that is malleable to change but still holds a clear message and is well written. There are heaps of queer stories, literature, and art that has contributed to the world and how we view it, look to Williams, Cocteau, Genet, Lorca, Orton, and Kushner to name a few.
The amount of talent gathered for this project will be left out in the cold by a work that in no way matches the artists involved. Nor does this work deserve a re-mount we have all move way beyond the views expressed and portrayed within Boys in the Band. We no longer should promote such blatant stereotypes. Just as we see Step and Fetch it as reprehensible so should we see this play as equally reprehensible. I can think of no real reason to mount this work again, not everything deserves to be preserved. There is no part of this work that reflects on where we have been and where we are, the real experiences of queer men and women from this time found much stronger voices.
Here is a link to an article in the Guardian concerning where Queer theatre has come from and where it could go.
Q is for queer theatre | Stage | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/apr/03/q-queer-theatre-modern-drama