The Nance, a Lincoln Center production starring Nathan Lane as the Nance and Jonny Orsini as his young lover and directed by Jack O’Brien, has received rave reviews. Written by Douglas Carter Beane, the play was inspired by the book Gay New York – Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World – 1890 – 1940 by Yale History Professor George Chauncey and published by Basic Books. It is a true social historical account of gay men who were often referred to in those times as fags (also a term for a cigarette), fairies, pansies, lavender lads or as queers; the later term is now embraced by modern post Stonewall homosexuals. Meeting places for sexual encounters were all over the City in gay bars, on streets in the Village, uptown, and elsewhere including Turkish bathhouses, men’s subway restrooms, and City parks. Edward Albee in his first play The Zoo Story has his lead character Jerry describing the cops chasing fairies out of the bushes in Washington Square Park. Other promiscuous sex ‘cruising’ grounds included the YMCA as well as cafeterias like the Automat. In fact, one of the four settings for the play takes place in the Greenwich Village Automat on 14th Street near Irving Place. This is where Chauncey Miles, who performs as the Nance character at the Irving Place Burlesque Theater, meets Ned, a handsome drifter from Buffalo who soon moves in with him and becomes his lover.
In Vaudeville days, comics in their routines and skits were expected to poke fun at the Irish, and there was also plenty of mocking going on towards Jewish immigrants. There were black-faced comedians or singers like Al Jolson or Eddie Cantor all over the place. A nance comic like the one portrayed by Nathan Lane danced and swished around on stage and received laughs from the audience by screeching jokes ‘like a girl’ and utilizing a limp wrist or a bump and grind to make a point. By 1937, the days of Vaudeville were coming to an end and the comics of the turn of the century, the teens, the ’20s, and the ‘30s had to perform in cheap burlesque houses in order to make a buck. Burlesque queens expertly and humorously portrayed here by sexy gals Andrea Burns, Cady Huffman, and Mylinda Hill are a laugh riot. Usually a nance was portrayed by a straight comic but in this play, the character acted by Lane is himself also gay. It should be noted that the author named his nance character Chauncey after George Chauncey, the author of Gay New York. In the play, as in the book, we learn that Mayor LaGuardia encouraged the police to humiliate and beat up on gay men and plainclothes detectives entrapped them by initiating assignations. La Guardia intended to clean up the City for the New York World’s Fair of l939-l940. This ‘real life’ history is an important aspect of what affects the relationship of the two men in the play, Ned and Chauncey, who continuously live like many others in fear and anxiety. Ultimately LaGuardia shuts down the burlesque houses calling them obscene.
Nathan Lane in a hellzappopin hilarious and tragic performance has never been better than in the role of the ‘Nance.’ Bravos for him and the rest of the cast. The merry-go-round revolving sets by John Lee Beatty feature a burlesque stage, backstage, Chauncey’s tawdry apartment, and The Automat and won the 2013 Tony for the Best Set. The 500-page Gay New York is certainly a definitive history of a time of both great oppression and crazy merriment in New York City. Author George Chauncey is now busy at work on The Making of the Modern Gay World – 1935 – l975.
A few years ago, I was invited to Yale University to participate in their ongoing ‘sexual studies.’ I was thrilled and honored when they re-created the Caffe Cino space and performed my play The Bed featuring two young Yale actors and also showing Andy Warhol’s film version of The Bed for good measure. See The Nance, a superb evening in the theater all the way and read the book, Gay New York, which is available on Amazon and at the bookstore Three Lives in the Village. The Nance is currently at the Lyceum Theater at 149 West 45th Street.
