In his upper eastside Manhattan apartment, Michael is throwing a birthday party for Harold, a self-awoved "32 year-old, pock-marked, Jew fairy", complete with surprise gift: "Cowboy" a street hustler. As the evening wears on, fueled by drugs and alcohol, bitter, unresolved resentments among the guests come to light when a game of "Truth" goes terribly wrong.
Mantello wants his audience to breathe in not just his characters, with their one-liners, quips, power trips and deep sadness, but also to imbue the breathtaking contrast with the self-assured men who now are playing them, luckier men not born when the play was written. That is not to imply condescension on the part of these actors - on the contrary, for you can read the seriousness with which they take their assignments to play men much less famous than themselves - but merely to claim Mantello's clear purpose, as intensified by a design from David Zinn that has one foot in two eras and its cleverly timeless body in the close proximity of such contradictions as intimacy and performance, privacy and display.
From the beginning, Boys has been criticized for catering to some of the deepest and most damaging stereotypes of gay life: the nelly, the show queen, the self-loathing closet case. Certain facets do feel dated, but to scrub them entirely would also feel like a denial of the truths and the time the play is rooted in. And for all the pop-culture asides and pointed wit, it's hardly a hollow platform for banter and bitcheries; director Joe Mantello (Wicked, the original production of Angels in America) takes care to let his characters' messier humanity come through.
1968 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
1996 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2010 | Off-Broadway |
Transport Group Revival Off-Broadway |
2017 | West End |
West End Transfer Production West End |
2018 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2019 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Robin De Jesus |
2019 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Mart Crowley |
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