Likewise, Daisy Boulton as his wife Laurel gives an intelligent but slightly distant performance. He makes a strong entrance with an endearing and gauche monologue but lacks real chemistry with Needham for the rest of the play. Both burst off the stage with impressive vibrancy and a mature sensitivity for the subject matter.ĭino Fetscher as Arnold's repressed and tortured long-term bisexual love interests gives a committed performance but I never quite connected with who he was or what he was going through. It takes Harvey Fiersteins beautifully written script. There is strong support from two absolute beginners – Rish Shah as Arnold's beautiful and sweet young boyfriend Alan in the central section and Jay Lycurgo as the teenage boy he is seeking to adopt in the final part. This is a stunning production where writing, direction, design and acting come exquisitely together. The play lives or dies by this role and Needham takes more time than Fierstein's original full-frontal attack, but he won me over and had me weeping for his pain and happiness by the end. It also includes a never-before-published introduction by Harvey Fierstein, as well as photographs from both the original production and the revival starring Michael Urie and Mercedes Ruehl and directed by Moisés Kaufman.The tale of a Jewish drag queen who talks like a Brooklyn stevedore but secretly yearns for love and family, is as specific as it is universal.įierstein looms large, but Matthew Needham makes Arnold a little less abrasive and a little more melancholy as he slowly lets us under Arnold's defences. He received his third Tony Award, Best Book of a Musical, for the musical La Cage aux Folles and his fourth, the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, for playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray. This edition contains for the first time ever both the original scripts for the three one-act plays ( International Stud, Fugue in a Nursery, and Widows and Children First!) as they were performed in the 1980s, as well as the revised script for the 2017 revival that condensed all three into the play Torch Song. Fierstein won two Tony Awards, Best Actor in a Play and Best Play, for Torch Song Trilogy. From a failed affair with a reluctant lover, to a committed relationship with a young model and the promise of a stable family, Arnold’s struggle for acceptance meets its greatest challenge in his intolerant mother.
What begins as a chance encounter in a New York nightclub leads drag queen Arnold Beckoff on a hilarious yet touching pursuit of love, happiness, and a life of which he can be proud. A new edition of the classic drama of gay life in New York in the 1970s and 80s-winner of the Tony Award for Best Play, now coming to Broadway in a revival hailed as “irresistibly compelling” by The New York Times.
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