The Wastes Of Time: Beauty And The Beast

Duncan Pflaster is obviously a gutsy playwright.  Really.  If for no other reason than he calls his new play The Wastes of Time.  It's like he's handing any disenchanted critic a title that can be easily twisted into a condemning bon mot.  Served to the likes of Alexander Woollcott or Dorothy Parker such at title could have fertilized scathing one-liners that would have been quoted to this day.  Fortunately, Pflaster avoids all that embarrassment by writing a good play. 

The name of this romantic comedy/drama comes from Shakespeare's Twelfth Sonnet, where all things of beauty eventually "amongst the wastes of time must go", only to be replaced by other loveliness.  It's an appropriate title because the most attractive element of the piece is Pflaster's ability to have his three main characters speak with a natural, realistic elegance.  There's sweetness in his words, especially when the trio indulge in self-revealing monologues about their desire to find love. 

"AIDS, horrific though it is, was one of the main things that led to visibility for gay people in the media and government. You don't know what it was like for homos in the early 80's.  Rock Hudson, Liberace, Pedro Zamora, Freddie Mercury - if they were still alive, would we all still be closeted and hidden?"  So asks David (Andrew Rothkin), a conservative looking, button-downed fellow in his early thirties.  His sad admission that beautiful gay men amongst the wastes of time had to go in order to be replaced by beautiful, uncloseted gay men may not be fully understood by his potential new boyfriend, the sci-fi-obsessed Jesse (Jess Cassidy White), who is ten years his junior.  Although the age difference doesn't seem that extreme at first, Jesse's lack of first hand knowledge of the epidemic's more widespread days is presented as a cultural difference among gay men. 

Jesse's divorced mom, Mary Ann (Susan Barnes Walker), who is ten years older than David, remembers her fun times in the years just before her friends started dying young.  The real love of her life, though never completely consummated, was a now deceased gay man who would take her out dancing to disco hits.  ("We were Will and Grace before Will and Grace.")  The author effectively blends a cute story of an awkward couple feeling their way through the early stages of attraction, including "meeting the mom", with the threesome's conflicting attitudes in dealing with AIDS-related events that took place years ago.

Shawn McLaughlin plays a fourth, silent character called Dancer From The Dance (after Andrew Holleran's same-named 1978 novel), a handsome club boy from a less complicated time who changes the set (3 gold-painted chairs) while happily boogieing to 70's and 80's disco tunes.  Eventually his relevance to the story becomes more apparent. 

Director David Gautschy fluidly stages the multi-scene play and his appealing cast delivers some fine and sensitive character work.  Rothkin is a nicely soft-spoken and reserved David who awkwardly forces himself into passionate outbursts.  White is touching as a youthfully optimistic and intense Jesse and the chirpy-voiced Walker is quite funny while gradually revealing Mary Ann's sexually liberated history. 

I attended the play's second public performance, and at this stage of development the piece seems a bit overwritten, especially in the time between the dramatic climax and the conclusion.  But Pflaster's sympathetic characters, warm language and interesting takes on serious issues make The Wastes of Time a worthwhile engagement. 

Top photo:  Jess Cassidy White and Andrew Rothkin
Bottom photo:  Susan Barnes Walker and Jess Cassidy White