I just never had gone all the way back to Boys in the Band, and it was my loss. As I mentioned, my history sort of began with those pieces. I remember when I was a freshman in high school, I read Torch Song Trilogy and then I got into Larry Kramer and Tony Kushner and people like that. Had you seen the play before reading the script? I actually hadn't. Because when we do, these are the repercussions." We can never repress human beings and whoever their true nature is as long as it's not criminal and hurting anybody else. My hope is that they would look at it and go, "Oh, my gosh. All I can do is try to play it as truthfully as possible and not get seduced by just making it a Golden Girls episode. I can't say what they're gonna find from the piece. And that's what we have to try to stay true to, you know? But it is going to be this dialogue once there is an audience there. But there's also a real pathos beneath that. It's so hard to be - and it's gonna be a really seductive thing once there is an audience there, because I think they're gonna be interested in coming and seeing people serve tea to each other at this dinner at this birthday party. Then for you, perhaps, a modern viewer would see this and think, Wow, look how far we've come? I would hope so. So everywhere they turned, they were being met with "Who you are is wrong and unacceptable." And then so those arrows start to go inward towards themselves and then be projected out to their closest relationships. There were real stakes to these situations for them in their lives. There was really this law where men who were gathered together had to have at least one woman with them and they had to be dancing three feet apart. And when they couldn't go out in public and even be seen dancing together. When their analyst was telling them that they had a psychological condition that was tantamount to bestiality - comparable to bestiality, the way we think of that now. This is how people were behaving with each other when society was telling them that who they were was fundamentally wrong. So I don't know that I look at it as something of "Oh, what hasn't changed?" To me, it really is a period piece. It's just been so progressive in so many ways. I think so much has changed exponentially, especially in the past five years. What do you think is still true about gay relationships that hasn't changed since then? Oh, I don't know. I also, just in my experience - I'm 40 now - but in my experience, coming of age as a gay man, I've definitely seen echoes and a resonance of these relationships and how these people were dealing with each other and themselves in my interactions with people. That time period was really interesting to me, and the more research I did about that time period the more I understood why these men were behaving the way they were. Including a lot of the actors of that show. We lost a lot of that generation to the AIDS epidemic. It was either hidden in the shadows or in apartments like where this birthday party is taking place. And it's actually really hard to do in-depth research on it because so much of it is lost. I was so unaware of pre-Stonewall life and all that that entailed. So much of my understanding of our culture started with ACT UP and Larry Kramer and then Angels in America. I get it." And I am interested in specific parts of our history. What's this all about? And then I read the second act, and I said, "Oh, OK. When they first reached out to me about it, and I read the first act, I thought, Oof. Why is Boys in the Band something that you wanted to be a part of? You know, it's interesting. But yeah, this is really my first Broadway show. I've been cast in a few, but I always had to leave to do other jobs or for some sundry reason that I shouldn't have left - and never under dramatic circumstances or anything, only because I needed a paycheck. The Advocate: This is your first Broadway show, right? Matt Bomer: Yeah. Bomer also notes how learning about the original cast gave him new appreciation for his own career as an out actor.Īnd don't miss The Advocate's full cover story with the play's entire ensemble cast of out actors - Bomer, Zachary Quinto, Jim Parsons, Andrew Rannells, Charlie Carver, Michael Benjamin Washington, Tuc Watkins, Robin de Jesús, and Brian Hutchison. In the following Q&A, Bomer discusses the role and the lessons that can be learned from Boys, including perspective on how far LGBT people have advanced in the past few decades, plus a stubborn mean streak that exists among certain queer men.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |