Sunday, June 24 saw a massive parade celebrating gay rights, part of New York City’s Gay Pride Week 2018. It was the perfect time to cover Log Cabin. As usual, Playwrights Horizons presents us with a play that is original, thought provoking, and not always comfortable. The year at the beginning is 2012; we end up in 2017 through delineated projections, “A short year later.” During this time, two couples explore their friendship, beliefs, and attitudes about gay equality and the world around them. Outspoken, British Jules (Dolly Wells) and her wife, the monosyllabic and visibly pregnant Pam (Cindy Cheung), are entertaining in their comfortable Brooklyn apartment. Their friends Ezra (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Chris (Phillip James Brannon) partake of quince paste and spirited conversation. Ezra laments his lost friend and prom date, Helen, who has now become the Transgender Henry (Ian Harvie). Pronouns are a problem, too. A short year later, the foursome meets again, with balloons congratulating the women on their new baby. Henry joins the scene; he now has a beard and a much younger girlfriend, Myna (“like the bird”). As things progress, Henry accuses his friends of not being vocal enough about Transgender rights. He finds the others “cisgender”—a word with which I was totally unfamiliar. According to the definition I found online, it refers to those who identify with their birth gender, so it’s the opposite of transgender. If it’s confusing to those of us who are less hip in the audience, it’s also perplexing for the couples. Ezra recalls the abuse he suffered as a gay teenager, being slammed into lockers and called names. Chris is even more incensed to be classified as a Neocon (Yep, had to look that one up, too). Even though he grew up in “the biggest house in Kansas,” survived feeling like the only Black person in Wichita, had a trust fund and a Harvard education, he still thinks he’s less accepted than a white transgender person. Time passes, and there are all sorts of topics under sometimes heated discussion. Are terrorists born evil? Do Myna (Talene Monahon) and her millennial friends just hit “like” instead of thinking? Or is the real problem that, as she says, the others have too much stuff, and don’t care about anyone else? Is Liberalism a kind of conformity? Added to this, we have Hartley, the baby who doesn’t speak, being played by Mr. Harvie, beard and all. Later, Mr. Brannon plays the child Ezra didn’t want, but Chris did. I am not sure what watching Ms. Wells stick her hand in her panties to masturbate does to enhance the play, other than to serve as a gag when it becomes apparent that the baby monitor in the other room is on. Another masturbatory moment is experienced by Chris, who fantasizes Ezra as a very assertive Captain von Trapp. Much of what we experience here is food for thought. It actually was in the news that an individual who identifies as a man gave birth to a child. Is he still really female? Pam counsels Ezra to take Chris back, even though Ezra has seen him perform a sex act on a cabdriver. Her reasoning is that straight people have been doing this for years; she’s sure her grandmother in the ‘50’s experienced similar situations. She also assures him that even though Chris may continue this behavior, at the end of the day, it’s no big deal. Not sure what reality she inhabits, or whether the sky is blue on that planet. The actors are all wonderful, with Jesse Tyler Ferguson the standout. As always, his sense of timing is impeccable. The turntable on stage works perfectly to shift not only the scene, but our sense of reality. Whether or not we understand or agree with everything being presented in Log Cabin, it’s well worth seeing and later discussing, especially with a serving of quince paste.
