There is a segment in Rick McKay's wonderful documentary Broadway: The Golden Age in which a bevy of renowned actors talk about the most unforgettable performance they've ever seen: Laurette Taylor as Amanda Wingfield in the original 1945 production of The Glass Menagerie. That same reverence has been ascribed to dozens of other one-of-a-kind portrayals in the ensuing decades that only stage audiences had the pleasure of seeing.
Nathan Lane gives one of those legendary performances in The Nance, the latest play from out writer Douglas Carter Beane. And thanks to a partnership between Lincoln Center—where the play was produced in 2013—and the marketing firm Screenvision, Lane's acting triumph is going to reach a much larger audience when it plays nationwide in movie theatres for a limited time. Locally, The Nance will screen at the Landmark Century Centre Theatres, 2828 N. Clark St., and Highland Park's Landmark Renaissance Place Cinema, 1850 2nd St., on July 16-20.
That's also great news for fans of Beane, whose previous gay-tinged plays The Little Dog Laughed and As Bees in Honey Drown have not been adapted for film. Unlike those modern-day efforts, The Nance delves into a mostly unexplored corner of gay history. In 1930s, during the waning days of burlesque, it was common to include in the show amongst the strippers, comics and vaudevillians a performer known as "the nance"—a lisping, mincing character with an arsenal of double entendres at the ready who embodied homosexual stereotypes and was so beloved by audiences that these actors were often given headliner status. These over-the-top caricatures of neutered, non-threatening queer identity were normally performed by straight men but in Beane's play Chauncey Miles, the fictional character Lane embodies, is gay both on and off stage.
It is this troubling irony that provides the springboard for Beane's tragicomedy. Chauncey—as evidenced in a series of expertly created naughty sketches and musical parodies that speak to the play's theme ( not unlike the songs in Cabaret )—truly is the embodiment of exuberant gay camp and he's responsible for making the cash registers ring once again in the tatty revue in which he's featured. Offstage, his cautious life—in which he surreptitiously cruises for trade according to its complex rules ( a hat on the chair means "not interested" ) at the Horn & Hardart automat and other underground Manhattan gathering spots for gay men—is about as close as Chauncey gets to anything resembling a relationship.
That is, until he tricks with the innocent, hunky Ned ( Jonny Orsini ). Chauncey learns the morning after picking up Ned that he is neither straight nor trade but something he hasn't encountered before: a gay man who isn't guilty about his sexuality. It's perhaps even the opposite, as Ned is eager to embark on a relationship with Chauncey and isn't the least embarrassed about his physical attraction or his growing attachment. But Chauncey has learned to live within the constraints of his offstage closet; he's sees the irony of his situation ( "A pansy playing a nance," he insists is "like a Negro doing blackface" ) yet he's also a survivor who is all too aware of the danger in exposing himself emotionally to the intimacy Ned is craving.
The opposing views of these two gay men are summed up late in the play when Ned responds to Chauncey's once again denigrating himself by saying, "You have got more words to describe yourself that hurt." In a world-weary tone Chauncey answers back, "I do so admire the way you can see a future in all this." Beane offers a momentary spark of hope in that wistful remark but doesn't pretend that it's anything more than that and though the character of Chauncey certainly has taken a lot of unthinkable emotional risks by the play's memorable conclusion, it's within the bounds of the reality of the time period.
Chauncey's story—which plays out on a revolving stage that quickly shifts between the burlesque stage and dressing rooms to his cramped apartment—seems tailor-made for Lane's outsized talents. A master of the bombastic remark followed by the quick, doleful aside that underlines the zinger, Lane is in his element in the burlesque sketches, with his portrayal of the super-nelly sissy calling to mind the craziness of Rip Taylor flinging his bag of confetti. The onstage vibrancy is matched by the angry outbursts and hints of insight into his tragic personal situation that Lane gives Chauncey as he and Orsini ( also wonderful ) as Ned head toward their final confrontation.
Although I'd like to have seen Lane repeat his Chauncey Miles in a proper film adaptation ( given the state of funding for queer-themed movies, what were the chances of that happening? ), that's not to suggest that this version of The Nance isn't worth seeing. It is. Lane, under the direction of Jack O'Brien, turns in the scenery-chewing kind of work that is thrilling and emotionally satisfying to experience—reason enough to head to the Cineplex to catch this great theatrical performance. http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=139613
Film notes:
Four years ago Illinois state Reps. Sara Feigenholtz and Ann Williams saw the legislation they sponsored, the Original Birth Certificate Access Law, go into effect. The law grants Illinois-born adoptees the opportunity to receive a copy of their original birth certificate for the first time.
Feigenholtz and Williams, both adoptees, will host a screening of Jean Strauss' documentary A Simple Piece of Paper, a film that follows several of their fellow adoptees over the past four years after receiving their papers and tracking down their birth families. The screening is taking place Wed., July 9, at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St., with doors at 6:30 p.m. and screening at 7:30 p.m. In addition to Feigenholtz and Williams, several of the subjects profiled in the documentary will be on hand for the screening. http://www.asimplepieceofpaper.com/
Cineastes will be pleased to note that the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., is back with another line-up of great films for its Son of 70MM Festival that runs Friday, July 11 through Thursday, July 24. This is a rare opportunity to see 10 films ( out of less than 50 that utilized the process ) in their original wide-screen, higher-definition aspect ratio. Classics like Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spartacus, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Patton and Vertigo are part of the line-up but so are lesser-seen films in the format like Brainstorm ( Natalie Wood's final movie ), Disney's 1982 sci-fi curio Tron, the 1967 original musical Dr. Dolittle, and Paul Thomas Anderson's 2012 dramatic epic The Master. http://www.musicboxtheatre.com/festivals/son-of-70mm-film-festival
Two more queer-themed film festival favorites from last year, Antonio Hens' The Last Match, a sexy tale of gay forbidden love set in Cuba, and Arvin Chen's bittersweet Taiwanese comedy Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? are now available on DVD.
Now available: The Best of Knight at the Movies: 2004-2014—a compilation book of more than 150 of my film reviews from a queer perspective for Windy City Times—is now available. www.knightatthemovies.com .
