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Love! Valour! Compassion!
By Terrance McNally
Directed by Scott Shallenbarger
Produced by Hubris Productions
At Center on Halsted
3656 N. Halsted
Chicago,IL
Call 773-661-0938, tickets $20, Seniors & Students $15, $10 Industry
Thursdays thru Sundays at 8 pm
Running time is 3 hours with 2 intermissions
Through August 12, 2007
Brilliant McNally play filled with humor and pathos
Hubris Productions has a home in the beautiful new venue on the third floor of the Center on Halsted called the Hoover-Leppen Theatre. This fine space is initiated with a worthy production of Terrance McNally’s Love! Valour! Compassion! Under smart, no frills staging and direction from Scott Shallenbarger, McNally’s complex treatment of gay life in 1994 when AIDS was still a major crisis come across as a mixture of witty and tender writing with large does of comedy, one-liners that eventually contains much melancholy leading to pathos. Love! Valour! Compassion! affects us with its sheer humanity as love, self-acceptance, courage and commiseration are played out by eight characters with seven actors.
I enjoyed this fine production that is the story of gay men (some appear nude) who are all friends who gather at Gregory’s (Brian Lee Bennett) summer home in Upstate New York for the three summer holidays (Memorial Day, the 4th of July and Labor day). The eight gay men love to kibitz, poke fun, flirt and argue with one another about straight verses gay society, AIDS, the nature of friendship, show biz and show tunes. They romp on the raft in the lake, they cheat, they lament their loneliness and fears in a most compelling drama.
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McNally has created empathetic people from Gregory, the aging dancer/choreographer whose dancing days are numbered. Bobby (Andy Sinclair) the cute and positive, good natured blind man and Gregory’s lover. Romon (Adrian Gonzalez) is the young stud dancer who loves to show off his naked body. He is the new boyfriend of John (Anthony Guerrero) the hated nasty English playwright. His brother James (also played by the talented Guerrero) is the old queen dying of AIDS. Buzz (Michael Graham), also has AIDS, is the campy, witty Broadway musical queen who sees the world as a series of show tunes. Arthur (John Blick) and Perry (Jacob Christopher Green), an account and lawyer who have 14 years together.
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They are an immensely likable group, surly are gay, but their angst, fears and needs speak are universal. Filled with belly laughs that move toward sadness with biting comments on aging, love, death and human understanding mark Love! Valour! Compassion! as a saga that unfolds in a richly rewarding evening of theatre. This well acted piece could use a quicker pace and a few judicious edits but ultimately it delivers laughs and pathos. The passage of time, loss and death are woven into a summer that we easily evoke as a journey worthy of out time. I especially like the work of Andy Sinclair as the angelic Bobby and Michael Graham’s flamboyant Buzz. Anthony Guerrero moves from the wicked John to the kind James marvelously. The new venue on Halsted Street aptly features one of the finest gay plays. There indeed is much Love! Valour! Compassion! on Halsted street.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: July 7, 2007
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