Mercedes Ruehl in Torch Song: If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother

Family values loom large in the revival of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy on Broadway. The hyper loneliness of Arnold, a gay man who performs in drag is what the actor Michael Urie kvetches about in his pursuit of love. Dressing as the play opens under its neon Torch Song lights, Arnold could be anyone longing for a lover, with spider lashes and red lips, equal only to the spectacular Andrew Garfield’s Prior Walter in the recent revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. While that great show explores an AIDS ravaged America, this setting inhabits more intimate space: a ‘70’s gay bar’s backroom, a bed, and a kitchen. That’s where Arnold’s mom comes to visit, and she is every bit as large and terrifying as any woman painted by de Kooning, or penned by Philip Roth. As performed by Mercedes Ruehl, she’s a nightmare in pastel, but she’s Arnold’s, and in due course, even as they spar for supremacy in suffering, they belong to each other.

On opening night this week, the show’s creator Harvey Fierstein exulted in the company of Larry Kramer, Zac Posen, Jules Feiffer, Halley Feiffer, Cindy Adams, Harris Yulin, and a kilt adorned Jordan Roth, among many others. Matthew Broderick told stories about having performed in Torch Song back in the day at age 19. It was his first Broadway role. Many noted that we have not come that far since the play’s first appearance in 1981. Gay life was edgy and life-threatening in that era, in more ways than just the plague that felled so many in a horrible scourge. Now, same sex marriage is legal. And still. Seeing Torch Song again after so many years, what surprises is the desired domesticity at its core.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura