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RIGHT FROM THE START
By FRANK SCHECK
IF
you think the gay-rights movement began at Stonewall, you need to see
"The Temperamentals," a valuable history lesson that makes for
compelling (if imperfect) drama.
Jon
Marans' play concerns the Mattachine Society, a group founded in the
1950s by Harry Hay (Thomas Jay Ryan) and cohorts to champion the rights
of -- to use the code word of the time -- "temperamentals." Another
founding member was Hay's lover, Rudi Gernreich (Michael Urie of "Ugly
Betty"), best known today, if at all, for inventing the topless
swimsuit of the '60s.
The episodic
drama depicts the beginnings of the organization, with the married,
closeted Hay and the Viennese émigré Gernreich -- an assistant for
Hollywood costume designer Edith Head -- recruiting such friends as
Chuck Rowland (Tom Beckett), Bob Hull (Matthew Schneck) and Dale
Jennings (Sam Breslin Wright).
While
meeting resistance at first from fellow gays, they achieved greater
prominence after Jennings' arrest for public lewdness. Claiming
entrapment, the activist was freed and became a hero of the movement.
Marans' drama is a bit too sketchy to be fully effective, but the subject is fascinating, and the acting is terrific.
Besides
the supporting players, Urie is funny and charming as Gernreich, and
Ryan superbly conveys his character's inner struggles, never more
movingly than when Hay dons a colorful shawl and declares, "I intend
never to be taken for heterosexual again!"
THE TEMPERAMENTALS
Barrow Group Studio Theatre, 312 W. 36th St.; 212-868-4444. Through May 18.
