The Dying Gaul

 

The Dying Gaul was written in 1998 by acclaimed playwright Craig Lucas shortly after the death oh his lover Norman Rene who had directed Lucas’ elegy to AIDS victims, Longtime Companion.  As such, the play is seething with conflicting emotions of regret, compassion, hatred, desperation, loneliness, and rudderless sexuality. Throw into the mix his portrayal of an immoral Hollywood, a contemptuous look at the straight world’s fascination with the gay lifestyle and the aids plague, and his depiction of psychology and Buddhism as ineffectual answers to life’s problem, and you are left with a very disquieting evening in the theatre.  The play is finally getting its Loa Angeles premiere at the Elephant Theatre in Hollywood directed by award -winning director Jon Lawrence Rivera.

The story is about a screenwriter Robert (Patrick Hancock) who has written a very personal script. The Dying Gaul, about the death of his lover who has died of AIDS-related tuberculosis. A slick movie executive Jeffrey (Ken Arquelio) wants to make the script and is willing to pay one million dollars if Robert will change the couple in the script to heterosexual. “America hates gays—no one goes to the movies to have a bad time or to learn anything,” says Jeffrey. Because he needs the money Robert agrees and they hug. Then Jeffrey says,” I’m a little turned on, are you?” Robert is lonely and likes Jeffrey’s dominating and ruthless manner.

Trouble begins when Jeffrey introduces Robert to his wife (Mary-Ellen Loukas), she knows her husband is bi-sexual and suspects the affair. She steals a file from Robert’s psychiatrist (Nick Salamone) and secretly injects herself, through a sexual chat room, into their relationship in order to understand male-to-male sexual love. The consequences are tragic for all concerned and the wife ends up dead. The plot devise of how she dies and Robert’s gullibility to the supernatural are contrived but that doesn’t mean the play doesn’t totally engross you in its twists and turns. The actors are al very good. Arquelio is suitably sleazy, Hancock appropriately distraught, and Loukas is on the money as a desperate clueless wife who puts her nose where it shouldn’t be and gets burned in the process. None of the characters are very likeable and the whole thing left me fascinated but queasy. I wish there had been more real sexual energy between the participants that would have heightened the whole experience. Rivera does his usual professional job and keeps things cracking. At The Elephant Theatre until April 19.