Any staging of Torch Song Trilogy starts with an extraordinary advantage. Harvey Fierstein’s voice shines out from every beautiful line. His brave, brilliant, wise, fragile and fearless – and savagely funny – celebration of the human spirit remains as potent today as ever. Gay visibility has increased exponentially since the 1970s but intolerance and bigotry are rearing their hydra heads yet again. Human nature, for better and worse, rarely ever changes. Nor does the desire for love and acceptance (of yourself and others) as we follow the tottering steps of Arnold Beckoff (aka drag queen Virginia Ham) towards an actual, hard-won happy ending. We root for him every step of the way, recognising ourselves in his hidden and hopeful heart.
Fierstein originally wrote, starred in and premiered three short plays entitled TORCH SONG TRILOGY across four hours over two nights in February 1978. Ten years later it made him a worldwide star in the film version, alongside Matthew Broderick and Anne Bancroft.
In October 2017 a new condensed version premiered off-Broadway before transferring to the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway in November 2018.
Olivier Award-winning director Drew McOnie has chosen this seminal play to inaugurate the Turbine Theatre. Knowing it was at the much-hyped Battersea Power Station development, I had expected a rather grand, cutting edge new theatre. Instead, it is the most cosy and low-key of arthouse theatres, tucked around the back of a bar by Chelsea Bridge.
The trains rumbling overhead and background burst of music from outside were perfect for a tale of the seedier streets of downtown New York. The simple sets made a virtue of the cosy space as we were drawn expertly into Albert’s melodrama – much of it of his own making, but not all.
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.
Fierstein 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. 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.
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. Both burst off the stage with impressive vibrancy and a mature sensitivity for the subject matter.
Dino 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. He makes a strong entrance with an endearing and gauche monologue but lacks real chemistry with Needham for the rest of the play. Likewise, Daisy Boulton as his wife Laurel gives an intelligent but slightly distant performance.
The other powerhouse role is Arnold’s fierce and unapologetic mother. Bancroft’s performance is simply impossible to better. Even had I not seen and adored it, I would still have felt Stegers attacked the extraordinary mother-son scenes a little too much and rushed through them. There is as much power in the gaps and silences as in the unflinching way they both flay each other with years of pent-up frustration and frustrated love.
These are minor quibbles though, for a strong first showing at the Turbine Theatre. There is much to enjoy and, most of all, there is a fresh chance to savour every blessed, blissful word Fierstein wrote and quietly wish you could grab him for a quick chat to make sense of life for every single one of us – gay, straight and everything in between.
TORCH SONG TRILOGY TICKETS AND INFO HERE https://www.theturbinetheatre.com
UNTIL OCTOBER 13: The Turbine Theatre, Arches Lane, Circus West Village, London, SW11 8AB
