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For a while this past summer, when there was talk in
the media about the New York Mets' Mike Piazza's sexual preference, Take
Me Out looked to be incredibly timely. After all, its catalytic
event—the thing that gets the plot going—is a press conference called by
New York "Empire" Darren Lemming, at which he tells the world that he is
gay. Lemming is one of those golden people—he remarks frequently that
things always go right for him—and so he expects this announcement to have
no negative impact on his very lucrative career or his astonishing
popularity with the public. It's clear that he believes setting the record
straight, so to speak, on this point, is a good idea.
What's not at clear, from Richard Greenberg's long and
rambling script, is why. The obvious reasons—to avoid a scandal or to make
a political/social statement—are both rejected in the course of the play.
It would be terrific, I guess, if prominent gay people would suddenly
acknowledge their sexual preference publicly and the world would say, "mmm,
how interesting," and move on. But it doesn't seem the least bit likely:
ask Ellen DeGeneres or Rosie O'Donnell.
What's even more problematic about Take Me Out
is that Greenberg does not use this hook to explore the issues surrounding
it. How does America react to Lemming's shocking revelation? Well, except
for one letter from an upset though understanding fan, we never find out.
Lemming's career in baseball seems to continue on more or less the same
trajectory it was already on, which is a lovely way to imagine the world
behaving, but doesn't seem particularly realistic or, more to the point,
insightful. Greenberg throws a hot potato at his audience and then never
picks it up, leaving us to wonder why he brought it into the theatre in
the first place.
Take Me Out does delve into one area related to
this "outing" theme, namely, the way that a surprise announcement such as
Lemming's really destroys the morale of the ball club he's supposedly part
of. And here we arrive at the meat of Greenberg's play, as far as I can
tell; for Take Me Out turns out to be, more than anything else, a
celebration of the great American pastime of baseball. The protagonist of
Take Me Out is neither Lemming nor his teammate Kippy Sunderstrom
(who narrates the play); it's Mason Marzac, a misfit gay financial adviser
who discovers the game when Lemming makes his announcement and finds, in
baseball, some of the connection and meaning that has eluded him elsewhere
in his lonely life. Greenberg gives Marzac some exuberant speeches about
the sport: about the ineffable mystery of threes in baseball (three outs,
three strikes, nine innings, etc.), and the patriotic joy of being
consumed in a crowd rooting for your favorite team. It's interesting
stuff, but it comes out of left field, if you'll forgive the allusion,
after Lemming's provocative action.
Greenberg also throws in an uneducated orphan hick
named Shane Mungit, who has an amazing pitching arm, and who joins the
team mid-season and eventually antagonizes all of its members, but
especially Lemming, by using words like "faggot" and "colored" in public.
(Lemming is black, by the way.) Eventually this leads to a confrontation
between Lemming and Mungit, and to a shocking development (a socko second
act curtain!) involving a player from an opposing team, one Davey Battle,
who is supposedly Lemming's best friend in the world (though it's hard to
understand how or why). Lemming's Japanese teammate Kawabata provides
pretext for another subplot dealing with prejudice and the nature of the
American melting pot, while dopey but surprisingly
in-touch-with-his-feelings teammate Toddy Koovitz allows Greenberg to
explore issues of masculinity and sexual panic.
As you can see by now, Take Me Out covers lots
and lots of ground—too much for its own good, I fear. Ultimately,
Greenberg brings up plenty of interesting subjects but he doesn't really
do any of them justice. I left the show without a clear idea of what the
playwright wanted to tell me.
And I haven't even mentioned the shower scenes. There
are two of them, with a working shower right on stage and, at one point,
as many as six naked actors soaping up right before our eyes. It's the
opposite of erotic and entirely distracting (questions of hygiene popped
into my head); it feels, also, entirely calculated to generate hype.
Rather than reveal important elements of plot or character, this use of
nudity just left me feeling uncomfortable for the actors.
Who are, in fact, quite good: I was particularly
impressed by the genuineness of Frederick Weller's performance as the
retrograde pitcher Shane Mungit. Neal Huff (as the narrator, Kippy),
Dominic Fumusa (as Koovitz), and Joe Lisi (as the team manager, Skipper)
also do outstanding work. Daniel Sunjata is unable to make Lemming more
than the cipher that Greenberg seems to have written, however, and Denis
O'Hare, as the cheerleading accountant Marzac, plays to the crowd way too
much for my taste.
I guess a play that poses intriguing questions is
better than one that makes no demands whatsoever of its audience. I just
wish that in Take Me Out, the playwright's intentions and point of
view were more clearly articulated. |
