Review - Good Boys and True: School Trophies

Set designer Derek McLane exercises no subtlety in immediately establishing the mood for Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's drama Good Boys and True. On entering Second Stage's theatre the audience is greeted by three walls full of dozens and dozens of sports trophies neatly displayed in wooden shelves that stretch from the floor to upper reaches of the playing space. Though the characters never recognize these trophies as a realistic part of their environment, they serve as a continual backdrop reinforcing a culture that believes those who achieve victory - in athletics, in career or in solving conflicts - are the only ones who matter.

Brandon Hardy (Brian J. Smith), class of '89, is all set to enjoy a great senior year as a star athlete at suburban Washington's St. Joseph's Preparatory School for Boys, having already gained early acceptance at Dartmouth. But he's unaware that the football coach (Lee Tergesen) suspects him to be the boy having sex with a girl in a videotape he caught two students watching in a classroom. Although it's possible that the couple, who appear to be about the same age, is having consensual sex it seems clear that the girl is unaware they're being recorded and the boy is successfully hiding his face from the camera. Before public knowledge of the tape erupts, Coach Shea gives it to Brandon's mother, Elizabeth (J. Smith-Cameron), who, perhaps by choice, can't quite determine if that's her son. While she tries to get down to the bottom of the situation, fearful of what she may find out, it's strongly hinted that her husband, a doctor who is out of the country on an extended mission of mercy, could take care of everything with one phone call via the old boys network. Meanwhile, Brandon, who has a girlfriend, has been occasionally accepting (unreciprocated) oral sex from his openly gay best friend Justin.

While the set-up is promising, the author takes the story in the most predictable and least interesting directions. Bits of information not revealed until late in the play seem contrived, as do several speeches meant to exemplify a crass indifference for others in a privileged society.

But director Scott Ellis' cast manages to avoid melodramatic pitfalls. The always reliable J. Smith-Cameron effectively shows Elizabeth's emotional conflict between her instinct to protect her son and her desire, if he is indeed the boy on the tape, to teach him a lesson that will make him a better person. Abbott keeps the intelligent, sensitive, sex-crazy gay student from coming off as a stereotype and Betty Gilpin is excellent in her one scene as the girl in the tape; a tough-talking underprivileged student working nights whose dream of a better life had something to do with her actions that night.

Photo of Brian J. Smith and J. Smith-Cameron by Joan Marcus