• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • NEWS+OPINIONS
    • NEWS TO US
    • COLUMNS
      • APPARENT HORIZON
      • DEAR READER
      • Close
    • LONGFORM FEATURES
    • OPINIONS
    • EDITORIAL
    • Close
  • ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT
    • FILM
    • MUSIC
    • COMEDY
    • PERFORMING ARTS
    • VISUAL ARTS
    • Close
  • DINING+DRINKING
    • EATS
    • SIPS
    • BOSTON BETTER BEER BUREAU
    • Close
  • LIFESTYLE
    • CANNABIS
      • TALKING JOINTS MEMO
      • Close
    • WELLNESS
    • GTFO
    • Close
  • STUFF TO DO
  • TICKETS
  • ABOUT US
    • ABOUT
    • MASTHEAD
    • ADVERTISE
    • Close

Dig Bos

The Dig - Greater Boston's Alternative News Source

A TERRIFIC LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! AT ZEITGEIST STAGE

Written by CHRISTOPHER EHLERS Posted May 17, 2018 Filed Under: A+E, Performing Arts

Zeitgeist Stage Company’s production of Love! Valour! Compassion! Photo by Richard Hall/Silverline Images.
Zeitgeist Stage Company’s production of Love! Valour! Compassion! Photo by Richard Hall/Silverline Images.

 

★★★★☆

 

There’s no getting around the fact that Love! Valour! Compassion! Terrence McNally’s 1994 Tony-winning dramedy, is beginning to show its age.

 

It was the talk of the town 24 years ago when it opened at the Manhattan Theater Club and promptly made the leap to Broadway. Although Angels in America had already made waves (it closed just three months prior to Love! Valour! Compassion!’s opening on Broadway), it was still a relatively taboo thing for such an overtly gay play to become both a critical smash and a hit at the box office. (The far less successful film adaptation would come two years later.)

 

And even if the play no longer feels like it crackles with modern urgency and that it doesn’t totally speak to—forgive me—the zeitgeist of this very moment the way that it did 24 years ago, Love! Valour! Compassion! remains a treasured contemporary work that is being given a worthy and totally absorbing revival at Zeitgeist Stage.

 

Set in 1994 at a semi-upstate New York country home, each act of the play takes place over three consecutive holiday weekends: Memorial Day, July Fourth, and Labor Day. The house belongs to Gregory (a genuine David Anderson), who is a choreographer nearing the end of his dancing career. His boyfriend of four years, Bobby, played with great gentility by Cody Sloan, is blind and is significantly younger than Gregory.

 

Also joining them are Perry and Arthur (played with sincerity by Joey C. Pelletier and Keith Foster), longtime boyfriends who hold good regular jobs and whose long-term relationship and reliable jobs set them apart from their other friends.

 

Many of the evening’s laughs—and there are many—belong to Buzz (an exquisitely funny Jeremy Johnson), a musical theater queen with a capital “Q” who claims to have been conceived after a performance of Wildcat, a notorious Broadway flop that marked Lucille Ball’s only Broadway appearance. But for all of his flamboyance, his shiny exterior begins to show some cracks as Buzz, who is HIV-positive, worries about when his time will come and who will be by his side when it does. (Thankfully, being HIV-positive is no longer a death sentence, and this is just one of the things that makes the play feel dated.)

 

Seeming to not quite gel with the rest of the group is John, a pompous Brit still bitter from his failed musical, and his new lover, Ramon (Michael J. Blunt), whose lasciviousness becomes a problem over the course of the summer. John’s brother, James (also HIV-positive), arrives later in the summer and quickly forms a bond with Buzz. Brooks Reeves, giving one of the best performances of the year, plays both John and James. (I dare you not to shed a tear during his third-act monologue.)

 

The play unfolds with the nonchalance of a long summer weekend (or, in this case, three of them) and is a rich study not only of friendship and love but of the cruelty of time and how—sickness or not—time rarely leaves any fruit on the tree.

 

Love! Valour! Compassion! suffers a bit from too much sentimentality—sentimentality that Miller’s production does not completely mitigate, though it can hardly be faulted for it. There is a great deal of heart that radiates from Miller’s affectionate revival and from the terrific ensemble of actors that make Love! Valour! Compassion! one of my favorite productions of the year.

 

LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! THROUGH 5.19 AT ZEITGEIST STAGE, 539 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. ZEITGEISTSTAGE.COM

Christopher Ehlers
CHRISTOPHER EHLERS
+ posts

Theater critic for TheaterMania & WBUR’s TheArtery | Theater Editor for DigBoston | film and music critic for EDGE Media | Boston Theater Critics Association.

    This author does not have any more posts.

Filed Under: A+E, Performing Arts Tagged With: review, theater, Zeitgeist Stage

WHAT’S NEW

Massachusetts Bill, Victim Advocates Call For Coordinated Date-Rape Drug Response

Massachusetts Bill, Victim Advocates Call For Coordinated Date-Rape Drug Response

Report: Fewer Youth Transition Out Of Massachusetts Foster Care System

Report: Fewer Youth Transition Out Of Massachusetts Foster Care System

State Wire: Activists Urge Congress To Raise Debt Ceiling, Resist Spending Cuts

State Wire: Activists Urge Congress To Raise Debt Ceiling, Resist Spending Cuts

Dancing On Banana Peels: Life On Lifetime Parole In Massachusetts

Dancing On Banana Peels: Life On Lifetime Parole In Massachusetts

Justice Department Completes Vetting Of Rachael Rollins

Justice Department Completes Vetting Of Rachael Rollins

AG Investigating BPD To Determine If “Gang Unit” Engages In “Unconstitutional Policing”

AG Investigating BPD To Determine If “Gang Unit” Engages In “Unconstitutional Policing”

Primary Sidebar

LOCAL EVENTS

AAN Wire


Most Popular

  • AG Investigating BPD To Determine If “Gang Unit” Engages In “Unconstitutional Policing”
  • Over Yondr: Are Cell Phone Pouches At Shows Liberating, Dangerous, Or Annoying?
  • Deep Cuts Brings Sandwiches, Craft Beer, And Live Music To Medford
  • Daring Greatly: TikTok Star Alden McWayne (aka Gucci Pineapple) On Scheming And Dreaming
  • Dead As Ever: Meet The Rising Dark Star Of Boston’s Jam Band Scene

Footer

Social Buttons

DigBoston facebook DigBoston Twitter DigBoston Instagram

Masthead

About

Advertise

Customer Service

About Us

DigBoston is a one-stop nexus for everything worth doing or knowing in the Boston area. It's an alt-weekly, it's a website, it's an email blast, it's a twitter account, it's that cool party that you were at last night ... hey, you're reading it, so it's gotta be good. For advertising inquiries: sales@digboston.com To reach editorial (and for inquiries about internship opportunities): editorial@digboston.com