BWW Reviews: Out Front On Main Turns Back Time With JEFFREY

So George W. Manus Jr. remembers the story like this: Back in the day, when he was directing shows at Actors' Playhouse of Nashville, I told him about a new play by Paul Rudnick. "You'd just seen it in New York," he recalls, "and you said, 'you've got to read this script and direct a production of it here.'" Since Rudnick's slice-of-life comedy about a gay cater waiter in New York made its premiere in 1995, it was probably 15 years ago that we first talked about Jeffrey - and now Manus stars in the title role in a winning production of the still-hilarious, yet heartfelt, look at Manhattan life during the early days of the AIDS crisis.

Directed by Buddy R. Jones, Jeffrey is like a nostalgic trip to the 1990s for older audience members, many of whom remember the tenor of those times intimately. Intelligently, Jones approaches Jeffrey as a period piece, ensuring that the design aesthetic for the show helps to capture the underlying confusion and questions of the advent of the AIDS era. And by casting two longtime friends - Manus and Richard Browder in the pivotal roles of Jeffrey and Sterling - he gives the production a sturdy underpinning that makes the story funnier and more poignant.

Told episodically, the story of Jeffrey is a serious one (don't believe me? You should've lived through the high-life of the 1980s and '90s) but thanks to Rudnick's remarkable sense of humor, any seriousness is leavened by genuinely funny moments that will have you laughing out loud throughout the play's 90 minutes. It's a romance to be sure - throughout Jeffrey struggles to come to terms with life in this new era of safer-sex and masturbation clubs, the ever-growing gay rights movement and the siren song that has drawn gay men to New York ever since early settlers took advantage of the Native Americans who were there first.

Thanks to Rudnick's structure of the play, audiences are treated to frank discussions of everything that Jeffrey encounters in his life, presenting self-help gurus, 12-step programs, AZT trials and tribulations and an endless string of memorial services with equal respect and disdain. That's what makes Jeffrey a timeless tale that contemporary audiences can identify with today - we don't hear quite so much about HIV/AIDS as we used to, but knowledge is a good thing and something that never grows old, so a revival of Jeffrey may be just what the CDC ordered.

Manus takes on the role of Jeffrey with ease, confidently focusing on his character to deliver a completely plausible and engaging performance. Problem is, he has to share the stage most often with the scene-stealing Browder as his best-friend, an "interior decorator" whose sense of style is outlandish and over-the-top. The two actors' longterm friendship enables each man to be totally trusting of the other, resulting in an honest, if hilarious, onstage pairing. Browder gives the younger actors in the cast an acting lesson with his spot-on performance, while giving Manus the perfect foil for Jeffrey's whining ways.

Ryan Vogel plays Steve, the object of Jeffrey's desires, and he effectively portrays the character while traversing the undefined landscape of their budding relationship. The chemistry between Vogel and Manus grows slowly, but by the end of Act Two it is palpable.

Playing Darius, Sterling's Cats chorus boyfriend, Andy Woloszyn is perhaps the ideal "pocket gay," so irrepressibly cute and charming that you might find yourself asking if you could put him in your pocket and take him home with you. His confident performance makes Darius all the more appealing, which helps to underscore the character's later scenes with a poignant grace.

Playing a whole pack of irreverent characters who move in and out of Jeffrey's life are Anderson Dodd, Jessica Theiss, Seth Limbaugh and Zach Parker. They move seamlessly in and out of the play's action, becoming different characters at every turn and displaying each actor's versatility with aplomb. Limbaugh and Theiss, who shine throughout the play in their wide array of performances, are particularly good as Jeffrey's parents in Wisconsin - and the scene in which they attempt to engage their son in phone sex is particularly well-played and worth the price of admission (Manus' reaction to their conversation is priceless). Dodd is terrific as a snarky cater waiter and as the dominating master of an S&M jerk-off club, while he and Parker (delightful as a participant in a self-help session) give strong performances as two thugs who attack Jeffrey on a street in Chelsea.

Jeffrey. By Paul Rudnick. Directed by Buddy R. Jones. Presented by Out Front on Main, 1511 East Main Street, Murfreesboro. Through August 28. For reservations, call (615) 516-6279. For further details, visit the company website at www.OutFrontOnMain.com.

 

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.