Reviews

The Boys in the Band by Mart Crowley

Only show reviews with written explanations

dievalzam's review

4.0

I have a strange relationship with this play. As a gay man in 2020, it's hard not to feel bad for these queer men that treat each other so bad. That doesn't mean that it's difficult to feel empathy for them. Society makes us outcasts that sometimes don't know how to handle self-indulged hate that is the product of all the things that we heard about the LGBTQ+ community while growing up.
As a play, I think that the two acts are really different from one another, and that transition isn't as smooth as I would want to. But I don't know. I still feel intrigued by this story thanks to its humor and the complexity of its characters. Maybe we don't see happy gay men on stage, but that could make us think why so many queer men are that unhappy.

lola425's review against another edition

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4.0

Reading in prep for seeing the revival in May. So the question is do you view the play as a historical document illustrating how things were (this play was written on the cusp of Stonewall), do you view it as a cautionary tale (we were this way and won't ever be this way again) or do you just accept it as it is a snapshot of a certain kind of behavior from a particular group of friends and laugh your way through some of the more painful utterances? A little of everything, I guess. I very much enjoyed the play and felt that Crowley's characters were real, pulled people he had known in life. Are they nice people? Not all the time. Are they human and flawed? Most certainly. But if you're going to discount the play as a noxious brand of gay self-hatred that has no relevance in modern society, I think you'd be selling the play short. The characters stuck with me and made me think, so I consider that a successful play.

Note: After watching the movie, I felt like Lena Dunham/Girls writers most certainly were influenced by it when they wrote the Hamptons episode where everybody ends up fighting and Shoshanna gets drunk and unloads on them all. It just had that feel.

miajakobsen's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I cannot stop thinking about this play. I love the moments of queer joy. I love its brutal honesty and how it doesn't shy away from any of the ugliness. While it's definitely a product of its time, it's also incredibly relevant today (i.e. racism within the queer community, internalized homophobia) and we can learn so much from it to ensure that we don't go back to that ugly place that these men are stuck in during 1968.

bobbiedraper's review

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

anais_jones's review

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adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

savtruther's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I can’t even begin to articulate just how impactful this play is half as eloquently as Tony Kushner did in the introduction…all I know is that this is the type of literature that leaves you reeling as you chew on what you have read. So many powerful quotes. I’ve already seen the movie a million times and yet the quotes still hit me like a truck as I was reading this—even more so with the addition of being able to pay attention to character’s interactions via stage directions. okay.

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