Critical Essay | Critical Review by David Kaufman

Critical Review by David Kaufman

SOURCE: A review of Love! Valour! Compassion!, in The Nation, New York, Vol. 259, No. 21, December 19, 1994, pp. 774-76.

[In the following favorable review, Kaufman examines the themes, characters, and plot development in Love! Valour! Compassion!]

"You show me a happy homosexual and I'll show you a gay corpse." Though it was supposed to be sardonic, this tragic line from The Boys in the Band has acquired a grim, unintended meaning long after it was uttered by a gay character in 1968, a year before the Stonewall uprising. Generally perceived as the first "homosexual play"—as opposed to merely being a play about homosexuals—Mart Crowley's drama was steeped in a self-loathing that stereotyped homosexuality and branded all homosexuals at the time. But we've come a long way since then, both on stage and off. In terms of the theater, however, never has our progress seemed more assured or more...
(read more)