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<\/p>\nBoys Will Be Boys in \u2018Straight White Men\u2019 Starring Armie Hammer and Josh Charles: REVIEW<\/b>
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Armie Hammer and Josh Charles are horsing around, swatting at each other and throwing shapes with abandon, as the crowd titters in delight. A frame around the Helen Hayes stage bears a plaque classifying the species on display: <\/span>Straight White Men<\/span><\/i>, which opened there tonight. <\/span><\/p>\n Young Jean Lee\u2019s new play, the first by an Asian-American woman<\/a> to reach Broadway, invites us to consider its subjects with a scrutiny they\u2019re rarely afforded \u2014 not as the standard by which difference is measured, but as compound constructs themselves: of whiteness, maleness, and heteronormativity. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs foreign as they are to us, we\u2019re gonna try to find some understanding for straight white men<\/a>,\u201d Kate Bornstein, a non-binary performance artist, tells the audience in a pre-show speech with Ty Defoe, whose gender identity translates from the Ojibwe language to mean \u2018transcending gender.\u2019 \u201cThat\u2019s what we wish everyone would do for us.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Whether you\u2019re one of \u201cus\u201d or one of them, our hosts seem to say, it\u2019s our turn to look. The zookeepers have become the main attraction.<\/span><\/p>\n But the lifelike sounds and behavior exhibited by the bros assembled here (Hammer and Charles play actual brothers, along with Paul Schneider) are nothing if not familiar. Waiting for them to do something wild or confrontational, as many of Lee\u2019s previous characters have, may prove disappointing. Boys, it seems, will be boys<\/a> at any age \u2014 albeit especially fun to watch when played by an able, starry cast.<\/span><\/p>\n When they share a pie with dad (the brothers are home for Christmas), forks dive directly into the pan. When Charles\u2019 alpha banker returns from a run, he swipes a hand towel through his pits and drapes it over the face of his passed-out sibling, Hammer\u2019s tenure-track author. When dad (Stephen Payne) forces them all to wear matching holiday PJs, the brothers re-enter Todd Rosenthal\u2019s living room set and pose, side by side, like a boy<\/a> band.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s only when the eldest, played by Schneider, bursts into tears over Chinese takeout that we get our first hint being straight, white, and middle class may not be all laughs and leather couches. <\/span><\/p>\n The brothers\u2019 late mother taught them to recognize their innate advantages (her revision of their \u201cMonopoly\u201d board is called \u201cPrivilege\u201d and includes penalties for being white). Schneider\u2019s character seems to have internalized this most deeply, working for community nonprofits after studying at Harvard and Stanford. But now he\u2019s living with dad and making copies as a temp. What gives?<\/span><\/p>\n His inertia becomes the play\u2019s primary crisis, all the more distasteful to the other men<\/a> given that he\u2019s squandering every opportunity to succeed and thrive. One brother thinks it\u2019s noble self-defeat, to move out of the way and let others less fortunate past. Another thinks it\u2019s low self-esteem, and therapy is a must. It\u2019s easy to share the brother\u2019s frustration as they try to get at what\u2019s eating one of their own, especially as the afflicted offers so little aside from saying he just wants to \u201cfeel useful.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n If striving lends the disadvantaged a kind of purpose, the idea that privilege can be crippling to those born on top is certainly an inverse to consider. Lee has never been one for easy answers, but here she seems to resist even posing more pointed questions. Under Anna D. Shapiro\u2019s direction, Schneider\u2019s lost soul seems disconnected from his actions; neither here nor there, just drifting. This seems precisely the point, but watching him can feel like a similar experience \u2014 there\u2019s not much to grab hold of, try as we might, to understand. <\/span><\/p>\n According to the program, Bornstein and Defoe are the \u201cPeople in Charge,\u201d despite their disappearance after the prologue. As they crop up between scenes to set the actors in place, it\u2019s difficult not to consider them reduced to props. They urged us to extend our sympathies to a historically dominant demographic, then scurried into the shadows, martyrs to the dark. Did they learn anything new here about their so-called subordinates? It\u2019s the most interesting question of the night.<\/span><\/p>\n Recent theatre features\u2026 Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar The post Boys Will Be Boys in \u2018Straight White Men\u2019 Starring Armie Hammer and Josh Charles: REVIEW<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad Gay News<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.towleroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/SWM3.jpg?resize=480%2C316\")
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<\/a><\/em>(photos: joan marcus)<\/p>\n