Nathan Lane shines as Chauncey Miles in The Nance by Douglas Carter Beane (Cinderella, As Bees in Honey Drown).The Lincoln Center Theater production at the Lyceum Theater is a rich, provocative romance driven by social demands that undercut personal needs. Beane’s humor comes packaged with pathos, and Nathan Lane ties the two together with brilliant sensitivity, delivering a well-faceted portrayal of a gay performer at the seedy Irving Place Theater during the last days of burlesque. His popular act is playing the “nance,” a swishing homosexual, wrists limp as he lisps, “Whaaat?! Oh, you brutes.”
On the stage, this was acceptable and legal. Offstage, however, Chauncey has been around long enough to play the secretive game of survival in the gay world in 1937, a particularly tenuous time with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia busy clearing away homosexual gatherings before the start of the 1940 World’s Fair.
The dilemma of survival is introduced in the first scene at a downtown Horn & Hardart Automat (“where the boys meet the boys”). Hoping to make a contact, Chauncey uses the subtle gay underground gestures, avoiding eye contact, his hat set on a chair, always wary of police presence. Chauncey wants nothing more than a brief encounter. He has lived a life of repression and denial and does not aim for a real love.
The cloak of defense slips when he meets Ned (Jonny Orsini), a handsome, naïve and hungry young stranger from Buffalo. Chauncey makes a connection and brings him home. While Chauncey realizes he may have a chance for a close relationship, his own lack of sense of self-esteem holds him back. Chauncey has always lived alone. Emptiness is what he is used to and where he feels safe.
Ned recently left his wife and develops a love for Chauncey. He even enjoys sharing the burlesque life with its threadbare band and its colorful characters like Efram (Lewis J. Stadlen), a curmudgeon with an eye out for a vice raid and three sassy strippers, Cady Huffman, Jenni Barber, and Andrea Burns, who bump and grind like veterans, Beane draws each with interesting distinctions. One odd stumble in the plot comes when Chauncey, a Republican, surprisingly supports the women in a political stance for workers’ rights, but when that does not work out, he slips back into his old cocoon.
The turning point of The Nance comes when Ned asks the older man to be monogamous. Chauncey’s feeling about commitment is, “This is not for me. It’s not what I should be having.” Lane’s words, both to Ned and to himself, is an affecting moment.
Director Jack O’Brien skillfully steers the compelling story line of isolation and human needs and keeps it balanced with bursts of brash comedy and the insert of ‘30’s politics. Lane gets a prize role here, and he proves authoritative evoking Chauncey’s complexity, his face expressively reflecting conflicted feelings as clearly as his comic bursts of, “Whaaat?” on the burlesque stage. Jonny Orsini is credible in his Broadway debut, showing Ned’s sweetness and innocence in the love he offers Chauncey. The secondary characters effectively show their camaraderie in the burlesque world.
A versatile turntable set by John Lee Beatty’s displays the iconic Automat with its lonely Edward Hopper look, Chauncey’s fantastically decorated apartment that he calls, "Anna Mae Wong's wet dream," and the old Irving Place Theater in its last days.
Ann Roth’s costumes reflect the era, and sound designer Leon Rothenberg’s sudden wails of sirens are jolting reminders of impending danger. Glen Kelly’s music adds to the dusty ambiance.
Although there is no happy ending for this romance, it is kudos all around for The Nance.
