Gay film and television dramas always include suffering. A lot of suffering. We in the LGBTQIA+ community don’t get a lot of Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant frothy rom coms. Hell, we don’t get any Marvel epics, Disney fables, sci-fi adventures, or even glitzy musicals of our own. C’est la vie.
But sometimes in the suffering, Hollywood gets it right. That is indubitably the case with Showtime’s/Hulu’s/Paramount+’s literary adaptation Fellow Travelers, starring Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, Allison Williams, Jelani Alladin, and Noah Ricketts. It is almost the case with actor/star/auteur Bradley Cooper’s latest opus, the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro on Netflix, co-starring Carey Mulligan, Sarah Silverman, Maya Hawke, annnnnnnd … Matt Bomer!
It may be an unfair comparison, as Fellow Travelers benefits a) from being a work of historical fiction and b) from being told over eight episodes. The adaptation of Thomas Mallon’s novel has a lot more latitude and space to explore the nuances and travails of gay men living, loving, and, quite frankly, simply surviving – from the McCarthy communist witch hunts and Lavender Scare until the AIDS crisis in the mid-80s. I might also suggest, however, that Fellow Travelers benefits from its showrunners being openly gay themselves – among them writer/executive producer Ron Nyswaner and director/executive producer Daniel Minahan.
Now, I’m not one who subscribes to the notion that only people in one particular group can tell the stories of said group. Art is about exploring and learning and growing – and you can only do that by molding clay that may be a bit foreign to your own lived experience. However, the viewer can feel the qualitative difference when said stories are told by those who have experienced them firsthand versus those who haven’t. What is that old saw? “Write what you know.” It’s a conundrum to be sure – some of the best art is crafted by those who have survived a fiery furnace, but others gain knowledge and empathy by exploring its simulacrum.
Fellow Travelers covers (in essence) a waterfront remarkably akin to that of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning two-part play Angels in America, itself a groundbreaking moment for gay literature and art. Closeted McCarthy bulldog Roy Cohn (later a mentor to Donald Trump) is a haunted gargoyle of an antagonist in each. As Cohn in Fellow Travelers, Will Brill is exceptional – infuriating AND heartbreaking – a scheming ball of self-loathing barbed wire. Matt Bomer’s Fellow Travelers character Hawkins Fuller, a state department bureaucrat and war hero, could be a corollary to Angels’ similarly “straight-presenting,” dual-life-leading Mormon anti-hero Joe Pitt. Jonathan Bailey’s tortured idealist Tim Laughlin who ricochets from cause to cause (McCarthyism, seminary, San Fran-community organizer) in Fellow Travelers evokes faith-conflicted, virtue-signaling Louis Ironson in Angels. And both characters are a bit … exhausting TBH. Hawk’s long-suffering wife Lucy Smith, as portrayed by Allison Williams in Fellow Travelers, follows a similar arc to Joe Pitt’s equally long-suffering wife Harper in Angels (minus the polar bear excursions). And we even have an answer for Angels’ Belize, the play’s over-it-all Jiminy Cricket-conscience, in Fellow Travelers’ will-they-won’t-they couple Marcus Gaines, a closeted journalist, and Frankie Hines, a very un-closeted drag performer and activist, portrayed respectively (and luminously) by Jelani Alladin and Noah Ricketts.
While the cast structure and timeline bear striking similarity to Angels, the tone is very different. No flights of fantasia nor whipsaw quippery here, and, in some respects, the story is more impactful for playing it, excuse me, straight. Particularly, Bomer and Williams turn in career-best performances. Neither fall prey to convention here. Bomer is, yes, a bit Mad Men-Don Draper-esque here (to the good). He plays the Machiavellian Hawkins as a fully formed human, broken as can be, but functioning – and functioning highly. A director I once had – Rex McGraw at Ohio State – told me, “Remember, the villain in a play doesn’t think they are the villain.” They are either trying to do the right thing or simply getting by. Hawkins is not a victim nor a victimizer, but a creature of circumstance and access. He’s paved a career through military and state service, lives a personal life of countervailing performative balance, and dreams of it all leading one day to unlimited freedom (a day that never comes). In contrast, Williams could play simply the tragic collateral damage to all this – the naive spouse who trades away full-fledged love for security. Her character and her portrayal are too smart for that. She knows what she’s gotten into, sees the promise in Hawkins, but also shields her own heart as best she can.
What people outside the LGBTQIA+ community – particularly of a certain era – may fail to understand is that for many (myself included) we play a game with ourselves (much like Hawkins) that with the passage of time (and the passing of some family members) one day we can be our true selves. Some of us realize that is folly, and some don’t. And that is a central tension of Fellow Travelers, Angels in America, and, yes, Maestro.
Bradley Cooper has gotten some flak for using prosthetics to resemble (uncannily I might add) composer/conductor/wunderkind Leonard Bernstein in Maestro. Regarding my point that not everyone has to be it to play it? This applies here IMHO. The film is a remarkable feat – Cooper writes, directs, produces, stars – and I mean he STARS, baby. Remember that clip of Cooper as an overeager grad student asking Robert DeNiro a question from the audience of Inside the Actors’ Studio with James Lipton? That same overeager Cooper brings his golden retriever-like energy to Leonard Bernstein’s own golden retriever-like energy and at times it’s just so much muchness.
It’s all beautifully framed, reverent even. And that’s a bit of the problem. Again, Fellow Travelers has a lot more time in which to tell its tale, but Maestro almost comes off like a series of frustratingly fragmented sketches, a tone poem if you will, that can’t decide if it wants to lionize Bernstein or crush him under the weight of his own vanity. A good biographical film doesn’t have to do either – in fact it shouldn’t – but the fact that Maestro feels as synaptically syncopated as Bernstein’s score to West Side Story makes for a slightly maddening viewing experience. And please note, I generally liked the film, but I wish it had slowed down every once in a while, cut down on the Altman-esque overlapping clichéd dialogue, and let us really delve into this brilliant soul’s mind and heart. It feels like Cooper took literally Bernstein’s closeted bisexuality and the conflict it presented Bernstein – existing in the same era as Fellow Travelers with life and career at comparable risk. Consequently, Cooper is playing the same game of “keep-away” with the narrative that Bernstein played with his sexual identity.
Thank heavens for Carey Mulligan. I think I write that sentence yearly now. As Felicia Montealegre Bernstein, Mulligan keeps the film from spinning off its well-intentioned axis. The script doesn’t give her as much as it could – again, a LOT of naturalistic “dialogue” which weirdly on film comes off pretentious and unnatural, but it is what it is. Nonetheless, Mulligan gets more across with the arch of an eyebrow, the pursing of her lips, a clenched jaw, a smile that fades slowly into a grimace and then a frown, the flicking of a cigarette. (Speaking of which it becomes almost comical that every single moment of every single scene Lenny and Felicia have cigarettes in their hands – like everywhere. I know smoking was a different vice back then, but come on!) With her precisely-expressioned face alone, Mulligan gives the audience long, deep looks into the pain (and joy) of sharing her life – professional and personal – with the boundlessly creative and self-indulgent Lenny. And this is where having some LGBTQIA+ creatives involved in the production might have helped Cooper strike the right balance depicting the high wire act Leonard Bernstein was navigating. Mulligan has the sensitivity and insight and empathy to show us the impact, but Cooper – wearing ALL those hats and with a healthy dollop of hero worship – doesn’t quite stick the landing, the way Bomer does in Fellow Travelers.
And, yes, both Maestro and Fellow Travelers include fourth act scenes in discotheques. It seems to be de rigeur for queer-themed productions. Whereas Fellow Travelers uses the setting as a place to explore the impact of emotional (and physical) self-medication, Maestro uses it to cringe effect (as the kids say). Seeing a sweaty Leonard Bernstein swaying his arms to Tears for Fears’ “Shout” (seriously, was that song ever played in a gay dance bar) as some final, triumphant act of liberation? Yeah, not so much.
(By the way, Cooper also has Bernstein listening to R.E.M.’s “End of the World as We Know It,” exiting his cute red convertible just as Michael Stipe shouts the lyric “LEEEEOONNN-ARRRRD BERN-STEEEEEIN!” I really had no idea what to make of that. Seemed a bit Mel Brooks-y to me.)
Both productions are well worth your time. I feel like I’ve been a bit uncharitable toward Mr. Cooper and Maestro. He should be proud of his achievement, and if I were his eighth grade English teacher I would give him a gold star and an A+ on his thesis project. But, for my money, the better bet is with Fellow Travelers. It says much about the human condition – queer or otherwise – and is beyond revelatory regarding our present socio-politically fragmented days. It’s the end of the world as we know it … and I feel fine.
I had a pretty gluttonous Thanksgiving. No, I don’t mean green bean casserole and pecan pie (I loathe pumpkin) and cranberry sauce and corn bread stuffing. I certainly don’t mean turkey. As Tom Hanks, thoughtfully portraying children’s TV icon Fred Rogers, observes in the surreally superlative A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, “I just can’t imagine eating anything that has a mother.“ Me neither.
It really is kind of a shame (and the luck of the draw) that I devoted 12 (!) paragraphs to 
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is exceptional, in great part because the cast – the aforementioned Hanks, Matthew Rhys as a hardened journalist determined to find the toxic truth underlying Mr. Rogers’ sunny sanctimony, and Chris Cooper as Rhys’ neglectful/neglected papa – sidestep any mawkishness inherent in the material with their honest, unadorned portrayals. More to the point, director Marielle Heller takes her cue from the source material – an Esquire cover story – turning in a film that is more clear-eyed essay than slice-of-life biopic. Everything in the movie feels as slightly left of center as any episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood ever did, acknowledging the program’s twee sensibilities and refracting the show’s heightened sense of “make believe” wonder as a metaphorical context for the tiny cruelties family and friend exact on a daily, perhaps hourly basis. It’s a good movie, not quite a great one, but the comforting cinematic equivalent of a scruffy, slightly embarrassing cardigan and pair of house shoes.
Jojo Rabbit takes the Merrie Melodies lunacy of actor/director Taika Waititi’s 
Knives Out is just ok. There are far better versions of this movie and far worse, but I think I’d rather spend an afternoon with Sleuth or Murder by Death, hell, even Deathtrap before giving Knives Out another go. As Daniel Craig, playing a crispy-fried Foghorn Leghorn private detective with none of the zingy Mason-Dixon daffiness he exuded in 
Blinded by the Light (on DVD and streaming) is directed with a sure hand by Gurinder Chadha, employing pretty much the exact same template she rode to international success with Bend It Like Beckham (which in and of itself follows the pattern of so many working class British dramedies like Billy Elliot or The Full Monty, depicting resourceful souls rising above class warfare). If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Based on a true story, the film focuses on a young Pakistani man (an appealing turn by Viveik Kalra) who strives to overcome the racist nationalism (there’s that theme again!) and economic disparity of 1980s Thatcherite England and to break loose from a well-intentioned but overbearing father who can’t understand his boy’s dreams of becoming a writer. (“Where’s the money in that?!” asks this guy writing a movie blog for free.) Instead of soccer, our protagonist finds his muse in the lyricism of “The Boss” Bruce Springsteen, encouraged by a wry but loving literature teacher (a marvelous Hayley Atwell) and some beautifully drawn teenage pals (Aaron Phagura and Nell Williams). The film is as predictable as all great fables can be but is delicately executed, well-acted, and simultaneously sobering and inspiring. And, yes, this bonbon of a film seems ready-made to be musicalized.
Speaking of which … Kinky Boots, the Tony-winning musical adaptation by Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein of the 2005 Brit comedy film of the same name (which starred a then-unknown Joel Edgerton and Chiwetel Ejiofor), was just broadcast on PBS’ Great Performances. To say the show was perfection – as perfectly kicky as the thigh-high red boots drag queen Lola (and later the entire cast) dons during the show – would be the textbook definition of understatement. This cast was the Olivier Award-winning West End crew, led by Matt Henry (my mother accurately observed … move over Shirley Bassey and Lena Horne) as the transformative Lola who storms into the life of bedraggled shoe-factory scion Charlie (a winning Killian Donnelly) and turns a small town on its collective head … for the better. The factory is days away from closing, and, by reinventing itself to serve the “niche market” of drag queen footwear, changes its fortunes … and the lives (and attitudes) of all who work there. This is no To Wong Foo magical drag queen fairy tale, however. Lola (also known as Simon) is a fully realized, poignant, exhilarating human being, complex, complicated, flawed, perfect. In Henry’s manicured hands, Lola is the heart of the show, a beautiful yin to Charlie’s shaggy yang. The stage relationship between Donnelly and Henry is deeply affecting, propelled by Lauper’s pulsing, percolating, nicely integrated score. Amy Lennox as Charlie’s co-worker, confidante, and eventual love interest Lauren is dynamite, a musical comedy crackerjack, balancing pathos and hilarity brilliantly, sometimes in a single phrase. Kinky Boots celebrates accepting who we are (and the gifts which embracing that truth can bring) with warmth, kindness, and about the best pacing I’ve seen onstage.
Lady & the Tramp (currently streaming on Disney+) is on the small screen where I reckon all of these live action remakes of Disney’s animated classics actually belong. Seriously, 20 years ago, these things would have all been very special presentations on Sunday nights on The Wonderful World of Disney in order to sell theme park tickets before landing on well-worn VHS tapes in the back seats of mini-vans everywhere. That said, this latest re-do ain’t half bad. Lady (voiced with moxie by Tessa Thompson) has an agency she never had in the animated film, and Tramp (a winsome Justin Theroux) just seems less, well, skeezy. There is an overarching effort toward inclusiveness with color-blind casting for the human roles of Jim Dear and Darling that, on one hand, is really refreshing, but on the other creates an inadvertently weirdly white-washed message about what interracial couples would have actually endured in turn-of-the-20th-century Missouri. And the problematic “Siamese Cat Song,” ear-wormy as it may have once been, is officially retired. In its place, there is a new and perfectly acceptable ditty to accompany Aunt Sarah’s prized felines’ narrative-essential shenanigans. “He’s a Tramp” is still on the playlist, but this time around is performed with sassy aplomb by Janelle Monae, in the role originated by Peggy Lee. The film is entertaining and pleasant with a timeless message about, yes, accepting our differences … not to mention the importance of responsible pet ownership.
The Mandalorian (currently streaming on Disney+) is about the best Star Wars spin-off to come from LucasFilm in the past 20-some years (if ever), in great part because it doesn’t seem very Star Wars-y. Or at least what “Star Wars-y” has come to mean since the original trilogy debuted: needlessly complicated back story; self-serious and ponderous mythologizing; overlong playing time; character development that seems driven as much by merchandisability as narrative need. The Mandalorian by comparison is a breezy pleasure, a throwback to single-protagonist vintage TV Westerns like The Virginian or The Rifleman (without any intentional swagger/machismo or inadvertent misogyny/racism), wherein our reluctant protagonist becomes the lens through which a different 37-minute parable is told each week. Oh, and there’s a really adorable Baby Yoda, who may be the cutest, funniest creature dreamed up since the Ewoks (yes, I still like Ewoks). Producer/writer Jon Favreau joyfully wears his retro influences on his sleeve (as evidenced by the minimalistic percussive soundtrack and the closing credits sequence, both of which seem channeled straight from 1968). Leading man Pedro Pascal (face forever obscured under his signature bounty hunter helmet – “this is the waaaay“) conveys so much heart, great comedic timing, and an intriguing amount of agnosticism, without benefit of one. single. facial. expression. Four episodes in, and I can’t wait to see where this one is going.
Watchmen (HBO) is so damn good. We had one of those “watch HBO for free!” weekends on Xfinity and, in a less than 24-hour period, we binged the first seven episodes, including tonight’s exemplary “An Almost Religious Awe” (every episode has a great title). I’m going to have to show up on the doorstep of some generous HBO-subscribing friend the next two Sundays to see how this thing wraps up! Any takers? The original DC comic book mini-series (1986-87) deconstructed the very notion of what a superhero was, offering a heady mix of cynicism and optimism, critical of Reagan-era excess and territorialism while satirically reinventing atomic age tropes of flying humans and hooded marvels, all to dissect the morals and ethics of those who set themselves up as our saviors. “Who watches the Watchmen?” Subsequent efforts to adapt the landmark series onscreen (no thank you, Zack Snyder) or revisit in print (just stop, Geoff Johns) have fallen flat, missing the existential trauma at the heart of the work. If you’d told my 14-year-old self that his 46-year-old future would include a triumphant, accessible yet layered, televised continuation of the storyline for a mainstream audience, I never would have believed you. In fact, it is this very question of identity and self and the ephemeral nature of time folding upon itself through memory that gives Watchmen its slippery power. The HBO series replaces the Cold War paranoia of the original comics with an incisive take on the race-baiting xenophobia currently paralyzing our country, in a way that is completely true to the original work while acknowledging how far we have (and haven’t) come as a society. Regina King and Jean Smart are (together) an acting powder keg, wrestling with thorny questions of race and gender, empowered and stonewalled and uninhibited and numb with white-hot rage. The supporting players are to a one excellent – Don Johnson (again!), Tim Blake Nelson, Jeremy Irons, Louis Gossett Jr., Hong Chau, Frances Fisher, Tom Mison, Sara Vickers – finding Shakespeare in the mundane and delivering a show that isn’t afraid to explore big ideas amongst daily tragedies. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is a character unto itself – disco for a dark age, as if Phillip Glass found his groove. I have no idea where this show is going, and I can’t wait to get there … and I really don’t want it to end.
As with every Madonna tour, there are a couple of numbers to preserve in the proverbial time capsule. In the case of Madame X (in addition to some wonderful exploration of Lisbon’s Fado culture), “Batuka” with its accompaniment by the all-women Orquestra Batukadeiras is a rocket-blast of fist-pumping feminism. The show’s encore “I Rise” is a goose-bump-inducing salute to any and all who’ve been marginalized by a society that praises conformity above all else.
I rise, I rise
Thank you to Thomas Paden and the Canton Chamber for this TV opportunity to discuss our #RealMenWearPink Detroit campaign. View 
Also, don’t forget that Theatre NOVA’s Follies in Concert opens November 7. I’m playing “Buddy”! We had our first read-through this week, and it’s such a marvelous cast! It’s going to be great fun. Tickets 
I guess when you met me, it was just one of those things
“Everything old is new again,” that Boy from Oz Peter Allen once musically observed. You live long enough and you see pretty much every trope and concept repeated in some form or fashion. In 2014, Robert Freedman’s and Steven Lutvak’s A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder was the belle of the Tony Awards, winning Best Musical among its other honors. The musical was itself based upon the 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman which had inspired the 1949 Alec Guinness film Kind Hearts and Coronets.
Three paragraphs in, I’m not here to evaluate the book or music – that ship has sailed, and the rest of the theatre community seems to universally adore A Gentleman’s Guide. My task is to talk about The Dio’s production, and, as with all of the company’s storied output, the show is beautifully, thoughtfully mounted with technical aplomb, spectacular talent, pristine music direction, and touring production-level costume and set design.
