The
heat of family drama combined with the clash of spiritual ideologies
fuels Next
Fall by Geoffrey
Nauffts, which is
abetted by a splendid cast and
pitch-perfect direction by Sheryl Kaller.
Injured
and in a coma, 20sh Luke (Patrick Heusinger) is in intensive care. Holding vigil
at the
hospital are his divorced parents from the midwest, conservative,
reserved
Butch (Cotter Smith)
and
gregarious Arlene (Connie Ray)
Also, among others, Adam (Patrick Breen), Luke’s live-in lover.
Complication
#1: Luke’s parents don’t know about Adam as lover nor Luke’s
orientation.
Complication #2, dramatized in flashbacks chronicling the Luke-Adam
relationship: Luke was raised to be an evangelical Christian, believing
in
Christ as the only salvation from Hell, which angers Jewish-born
atheist/rationalist/Darwinist Adam, because the ideological divide has
insinuated itself into their everyday life. Complication #3: Luke, in
believing
the literal word
of the Bible,
also believes his own homosexuality is a sin.
Facing
Luke’s parents and their beliefs, will Adam in his anger “out” their
son? And
if he does, and Luke never wakes, will Luke be perceived to have “died
in his
sins”?
The conflict
between liberal rationalism and
conservative fundamentalism has long been screaming for passionate,
even-handed, primary-focus dramatization, yet it has heretofore been
avoided as
if The Last Taboo. But playwright Nauffts has finally broken the ice, devising an ideal
scenario and
position-specific characters to throw its dynamics into high
relief—with
equal doses of humor and pathos.
Like any
dramatic icebreaker, it’s only a
beginning. But in the grand tradition of other issue plays that led the
way—The Boys in the Band,
A Raisin in the Sun,
As Is, Days of
Wine and Roses—it lays
the groundwork for further
exploration with all the focused clarity of a primer…and should remain
in the
repertory of contemporary American plays for a long time.
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