Theater District
Television hasn’t done nearly as well by gay characters, however, particularly in network programming. I can’t say that this is the impetus for longtime television writer-producer Richard Kramer’s first stage effort, Theater District, now making its world premiere in About Face Theatre’s sprightly production, directed by Eric Rosen. What is apparent in this flawed but often enjoyable 90-minute piece is that Kramer has a keen desire to explore the complexities and difficulties of family life today–at least as it’s experienced by well-heeled, well-educated, almost impossibly clever Manhattanites.
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Kenny and George are an upper-middle-class couple whose cozy domestic life has been upset by the recent arrival of Kenny’s brooding 15-year-old son, Wesley. The boy’s mother, Lola, is a high-powered literary agent now married to a low-key, good-natured ophthalmologist, Ben. Wesley’s closest friend, Theo, recently came out at a school assembly. When high school thugs attack the two “faggots,” the adult couples are forced to confront the consequences of their choices and their lingering doubts about the arrangements and compromises they’ve made in this uncharted familial territory.
Fortunately Tom Aulino offers a virtuoso performance as George. A fixture on local stages in the mid-80s, Aulino makes a welcome, long overdue return to Chicago. Kramer has given George most of the best lines–almost too many. At one point Wesley rightly observes that George, an actor turned restaurateur, constantly wisecracks about “food and showbiz.” The scenes in the Italian restaurant where George and his acerbic coworker Mario (Scott Duff) juggle reservations from demanding patrons feel as if they were transposed intact from Becky Mode’s restaurant-comedy hit Fully Committed. But Aulino makes it plain that beneath George’s barrage of quips is a good-hearted, nurturing soul whose parenting skills are much greater than Kenny’s.
