Set in 1958 and 2008, "The Pride" involves two threesomes: a pair of men who love each other a woman who mediates that love (maybe mediates is too strong a word but her existence certainly makes them possible). The "NY Times" review of this play sees it as a rumination of gay identity -- now and then. I, however, see it as a play about internalized homophobia among gay men (and perhaps gay women) -- the source of it and the way it plays itself out, both in the gay men and the people who surround them.
One of the 1958 men is a writer who has remained single and sleeps with men in seedy settings, which is to say the only place he can get it. The other is married but falls in love upon meeting the writer. They sleep together for a few months. The writer, upon finding love, realizes that his sexual desire is not the result of perversion but instead part of something more whole than, until now, couldn't be expressed more wholly. The married man, afraid of being seen as a pervert and giving up his "perfect" life, tries to empty himself of sexual desire but fears that the emotional desire will still remain.
In 2008, the two men are a couple: one who goes to parks to suck the dicks of closeted married men who express their sexual desire and self loathing simultaneously in those hookups and the other is repulsed by his boyfriend's behavior. His repulsion comes less from the boyfriend having sex outside the relationship and more from his detached sex with men who clearly abhor him. In one scene, he walks in on the boyfriend having sex with a prostitute dressed up as a Nazi.
The two stories of the gay men are incredibly moving. Also important is the story of the women, especially the wife in 1058. In a lovely but passionless marriage, she witnesses her husband fall in love with another man and is imprisoned in the lie of a marriage. When she finally acknowledges what has happened between her husband and her friend, she says that what upsets her the most is knowing that she has never experienced the passion that she'd witnessed between the men. This is a complex and fascinating moment. Homophobia is largely responsible for her husband's lie: he fears being ostricized. She is part of larger society that abhors gay men and women. At the same time, her husband has a choice and can, upon realizing who he is, choose to leave her. That choice would be an abandonment and a gift. Or, perhaps, just the best of a series of bad options.
I found the script to be beautifully and smartly written. Hugh Dancy ("Black Hawk Down" and "Jane Austin Book Club") and and Ben Winshaw ("Perfume" and "Bright Star") are excellent as the two couples, as is Andrea Riseborough, who plays the wife in 1958 and the best friend in 2008. The art design is also beautiful. The set is smart but not flashy. The lighting design is beautiful: it's amazing what some white lights and cigarette smoke can do.
This play is Alxi Kaye Campbell's first script and I can't wait to see what comes next.
