Terrence McNally Remembered

Inevitable that the current virus would claim the life of someone up close and personal. The pleasures of Terrence McNally’s work in theater have been a staple of New York’s Broadway and off experience for decades. In June 2019, I saw a revival of his Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, his writing a glorious vehicle for the talents of the actors Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald.

A bed sits center stage at the Broadhurst Theater, in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment from the 1980’s. As Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune opens, Michael Shannon as Johnny and Audra McDonald, Frankie, make passionate love. From the grunts and groans, it’s pretty good sex we are witnessing, and when Johnny turns over, applause breaks out at the sight of his bare rump. Bodies are not all that’s naked in this intimate two-hander: as these co-workers in a diner have this night together, they talk and peel back histories of hurt.

Improbably Johnny insists extravagantly on their union forever. Yes, marriage and kids. She wants him to leave after a snack. But he stays on. He’s manic but persuasive. It’s worse than “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” she says, getting a laugh. Continuing through till dawn, he cooks her an omelet chopping pepper and onions and cheese on a stove that’s really cooking. He gets the local disc jockey to play “the most beautiful music,” which turns out to be Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Listening to the radio, they look at the moon. Arin Arbus in her debut as director, gets their pacing right.

Michael Shannon said he’s playing this role as if it were really happening. “It’s not a play. There’s no audience.” His Johnny is a tender, damaged soul. On opening night, Audra McDonald’s husband Will Swenson was explaining to McDonald’s mother that Shannon often plays sinister types, as he does in Boardwalk Empire, The Shape of Water. But here his tough, wounded self is breathtaking.