Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
When Fierstein, an actor and playwright then in his mid-20s, began developing Torch Song Trilogy, the hot-button issue in gay society was sexual liberation. Urban gay communities were wrestling with whether gay relationships should aspire to anything like the traditional heterosexual model of marital monogamy. But Fierstein’s hero, the flamboyantly queer professional female impersonator Arnold Beckoff, unabashedly dreams of having a husband and a family. “I want more to life than meetin’ a pretty face and sittin’ down on it,” proclaims Arnold, a reflexive quipster whose one-liners, with their Borscht Belt timing, both express and mask his sensitivity, angst, and longing for completion. Set between 1978 and 1983, the play follows Arnold from the middle to the end of his 20s, chronicling his struggle to create a family despite external bigotry and the internalized homophobia of the man he loves.
By act three, “Widows and Children First,” things have changed dramatically. Alan has died—murdered by gay bashers—and Arnold is foster parent to a gay teenager, a onetime street kid named David. Ed has left Laurel and is crashing on Arnold’s couch, and David is trying to figure out how to get the two back together. The arrival of Arnold’s loving but disapproving mother triggers a battle royale over his gay lifestyle that he’s been dreading—and gearing up for—all his adult life. Mrs. Beckoff, a middle-aged, widowed Florida retiree, can handle Arnold’s homosexuality as long as he keeps it out of sight; she’s unable to see that being gay is about a lot more than what he does in bed. When Arnold compares his grief for Alan to her grief for her husband, she’s outraged at his presumptuousness: how dare he think his “widowing” merits the same respect as hers? And when he confronts her with his intention to adopt David and perhaps settle down with Ed, Mrs. Beckoff regards this not just skeptically but defensively: she sees his desire to live as a family as a choice he’s making to mock and assault the legitimacy of her own marriage. “She thinks I hate her and everything she stands for,” Arnold tells Ed. “What I want more than anything is to have exactly the life she had—with a few minor alterations.”
Care to comment? Find this review at chicagoreader.com. And for more on theater, see our blog Onstage.
