As soon as I knew that 'Next Fall' (Produced on Broadway in 2010 by Elton John and David Furnish) was playing in LA for a limited run. I wanted to see the much talked about play of a gay relationship.
I was also thrilled that this production starred legends like Lesley Ann Warren and Jeff Fahey plus the actual playwright (Nauffts) in the Lead role.
The Geffen Playhouse production of “Next Fall,” Geoffrey Nauffts’ drama about a gay couple with stark religious differences — one’s a fundamentalist Christian, the other’s a sarcastic agnostic — proceeds with the somber discretion of someone walking into church after the sermon has begun. The play has many humorous moments, particularly when urban wisecracks are pitted against redneck ripostes. But an autumnal light bathes even the comic aspects of the work, toning down the banter and subduing the punch lines.
It’s quite a different experience from the play’s amped-up Broadway production, though the director, Sheryl Kaller, is the same. Perhaps the biggest difference is in the portrayal of Adam, a neurotic New Yorker who falls in love with Luke, a sweet, openhearted younger man who silently says grace before every meal and believes his sexuality is a sin.
Nauffts, an actor-turned-playwright, assays this godless role and steers it in a surprisingly low-key direction. He clearly knows the show, but sometimes the moments felt awkward when religion was the focus.
The quieter approach draws out the sensitivity of Nauffts’ writing, but the play has a problem that can’t be solved by actor interpretation alone. The essential conflict is only as deep as the characters, and Adam, a substitute teacher, and Luke (the awesome James Wolk), an aspiring actor, aren’t especially profound. Towards the end they actually show them in happy moments during other times it also a debate about religion and Luke's unwillingness to come out to his hypocritical father (Fahey).
The story takes place after a car crash has put Luke in the intensive care unit of a Jewish hospital. (In a play rife with sectarian uneasiness, the religion of the institution isn’t immaterial.) Luke’s divorced parents have flown up from the South in a fluster. Arlene (Lesley Ann Warren), who went AWOL for most of Luke’s childhood, can’t stop her incessant chatter, aware that she must seem “like some kind of hillbilly” to these New York friends of her son. Butch (Jeff Fahey), Luke’s take-charge father from Florida, barrels in with his doctrinaire morality and intolerance.
The nub of the drama calls to mind AIDS plays from a generation ago: Butch, who refuses to see that his semi-closeted son is gay, doesn’t recognize Adam’s place in Luke’s life. Only “family” is admitted into the room where he is hooked up to machines, and for Butch, Adam hardly qualifies.
It’s a capable cast, with Warren’s emotionally clamorous Arlene stealing whatever scene she’s in, Fahey turning Butch into more than just an evangelical brute and Wolk emphasizing both the simplicity and generosity of Luke’s nature.
Nauffts’ Awkward (somewhat preachy) performance at times has that low-impact effect of a songwriter who decides to perform his own hit made famous by another singer. Overfamiliarity with a work can sometimes lead to a lackluster rendering of it. The natural shadings Nauffts supplies are appreciated, but more theatrical potency would have given the production greater momentum.
In the Lobby of the Geffen Playhouse stood a photo of Producing Director, Gil Gates, who just passed a week earlier, and how show still went on as a lasting memorial to the late great Cates.
The shows runs through until December 4th at the Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave, (310)208-5454 or www.geffenplayhouse.com.
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