Harvey Fierstein’s gay opus comes to The Studio Players with ‘Torch Song Trilogy’ – Naples Daily News
“Torch Song Trilogy” is likely a first for Collier County theater. Scott Lilly, artistic director of The Studio Players, concedes it may not be a welcome first to everyone.
The three single-act evening of Harvey Fierstein plays rotates around a Jewish homosexual man looking for love, marriage and a family, possibly the first such portrayal in Collier County — or even in all of Southwest Florida. But coming off soldout — even with extra seating added — performances of “On Golden Pond,” he felt more people are watching what The Studio Players are presenting.
‘On Golden Pond’:Iconic family drama, in Naples through April 4
Major roles for gays and lesbians have generally been relegated to musicals here, and have leaned heavily into cross-dressing. But stories about Arnold Beckoff, your unassuming gay next-door neighbor, haven’t come here.
And Lilly was apprehensive enough about the prospect of finding its cast, he began auditions for the September production Tuesday at Golden Gate Community Center.
Plentiful ‘Ma’ actresses; guys needed
The first casting call was going to be feast and famine. Two men had arrived for the three male roles by 7 p.m. (Lilly said there will be another casting call for the male roles; see thestudioplayers.org for more information.)
Perhaps there are still reservations about a straight actor playing a gay. Perhaps word had not gotten out yet about seeking actors. In the end, however, Marilyn Hilbert, a contender for the role of the central character’s mother, hit closest to the bullseye: The right age group to play roles with descriptors like “30-ish” and “handsome” don’t have time for theater in Naples.
“They’re busy with careers and their families. And this requires quite a real time commitment,” said Hilbert, who played the aging matriarch of The Studio Players’ “Waverly Gallery.”
She was in the feast group: Five women arrived to audition for “Ma,” the name by which Arnold’s mother is known in “Torch Song.”
“The mother is such a pivotal part of this play. I love her power. … I love the Jewish mother, what can I say?” said Casey Cobb, another hopeful for the role. She’s also a veteran of theater momdom with The Studio Players: She played mother roles in “The Cocktail Hour” and “The Waverly Gallery.”
“I like the whole play. I think it’s a great show. But when I saw the mother I said ‘That’s a plum role.’ I think there are a lot of levels in her, too — in her character,” she continued. “Her son is a challenge to her, and it becomes like a tennis match back and forth. She can’t get into that her son is gay, that he’s having this child — it’s not in her world. She’s not ready for it
“But in the end, it all works out.”
Fierstein’s story defined an era
One of the men auditioning for the role of Arnold, Perry Ventro, called it “groundbreaking. I’m trying to picture it.”
But, he added, “It’s way overdue.”
“I can relate to it. I grew up being gay in that era. So I shared a lot of the same heartaches and injustices,” Ventro said. “And parental problems as well, and relationship problems, as the main character has, too.”
Although “Torch Song” begins in the late 1970s, Ventro doesn’t think it should be seen as a period piece. All its scenarios could still happen today, he said: “It’s very possible.”
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Karen Ezrine, another candidate for the role of Ma, has the same recollections. Her parents owned a popular gay bar, the Allegro, in her hometown of Philadelphia.
“This play speaks to a lot to what I saw and experienced in the ’70s. I knew a lot of gay men who had unfortunate social issues, and I have a certain sensitivity to their journey,” she said. That empathy grew when Ezrine, working for the government, dealt with AIDS victims and their families.
She respects Ma as well as Arnold: “I can understand her because I knew people like her.”
Ezrine played the prickly, dogma-toting Catholic spinster in “The Savannah Disputation” here, so there would be a sort of relief in playing Ma: “I’m Jewish, so the intonations, the inflections, the language are very familiar.”
“I’ve always admired Harvey Fierstein and Larry Kramer, who put it all out there in people’s faces,” she added of the two playwrights. “It’s groundbreaking here. But imagine what it was back in the ’70s.”
In its original New York version, the play nudged four hours in length. But its strong editing down to two hours for the film version has been adopted for live theater versions as well.
Timing critical for ‘bucket list’ play
For Lilly, “Torch Song Trilogy” has always been a bucket list play. But he wouldn’t produce it without a base of supporters willing to trust his choices, he added.
“Even five years ago, I don’t think we would have been able to do it. We wouldn’t have had the audience. We wouldn’t have had the technology,” Lilly said.
“We have, I feel, our followers, our supporters, and I mean people who come to every show that we do. Even if they come in a little iffy, they leave with ‘That was a really good message.'”
“I’m very passionate about this play,” said Lilly, who said he’s probably seen the film “no less than a hundred times.” Arnold’s search for, and eventually insistence on, respect for the person he is rings true for every person, gay or not, he said.
Arnold says it plainly, he added:
“I never asked anybody for anything but love and respect.”
Harriet Howard Heithaus covers arts and entertainment for the Naples Daily News/naplesnews.com. Reach her at 239-213-6091.
Studio Players 2021-2022 season
All plays are at the Joan Jenks Auditorium of Golden Gate Community Center, 4701 Golden Gate Parkway, Naples.
“One Slight Hitch”— May 28-June 13. At the suburban Cincinnati home of Doc and Delia Coleman it’s Courtney’s wedding day, and her mother, Delia, is making sure that everything is perfect. Then the doorbell rings. It’s Courtney’s ex-boyfriend.
“Torch Song Trilogy” — Sept. 3-19. Arnold Beckoff has the same hopes many men do: love, marriage, a family. But he’s gay. It’s the late 1970s. And even his first true love is not certain about his sexuality. And his mother is: She doesn’t like it.
“Nuts” — Nov. 5-21. A high-price call girl kills her john, and the courts want her declared legally insane. She is determined to prove that she’s not, and that she should stand trial for manslaughter.
“The Lifespan of a Fact” — Jan. 14-30. This relatively new play comes from the book of that name, about the checking of facts for work that is historical yet creative. The tension between authors and fact-checkers becomes chaotic.
“Barefoot in the Park” — March 18-April 10. Neil Simon masterpiece comedy about young marrieds learning to juggle their diametrically opposed personalities with life in a fifth-floor New York walkup, the arrival of mom and the neighbor who has to enter his attic apartment through their window.
“All New People” — June 3-19, 2022. When Charlie attempts to commit suicide, the Realtor showing his apartment saves his life, then sets about with the intervention of various people, to change his perspective.
For subscription information, see the website, thestudioplayers.org or call 239-398-9192.
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LGBTQ theater here
There have been few plays in Southwest Florida where LGBTQ characters were more than supporting or minor roles. Here’s a list from the the last 20 years:
- In 2003, The Naples Players produced “The Laramie Project,” detailing student into local reaction to and attitudes about the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming.
- Gulfshore Playhouse staged “I Am My Own Wife,” the story of a transvestite war survivor, in 2013.
- The comedy “La Cage aux Folles” galloped through town as part of the Broadway Series at Artis—Naples in 2012.
- In 2019, Laboratory Theater in Fort Myers offered “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” the gritty tale of an unlucky-in-love entertainer who lives with a a sex-change blunder obvious from the title.