Torch Song Trilogy (Harvey Fierstein) (The International Stud, Fugue in a Nursery, Widows and Children First!)

I don’t know the broader cultural penetration that Harvey Fierstein has accomplished, but he’s always seemed like someone whose name I have known, which is its own sort of accomplishment I suppose. That being said his writing has never done much for me, regardless of the obvious craft that goes into his work.

Not to shortchange his trilogy of plays here, but that trend continues with this, one of his earliest works. Regardless of how well he draws central characters Arnold and Ed, or the fearlessness with which he looks at the difficulties in their lives, the three plays rarely rose above an acknowledgement that these are well-written, well-thought-out, and funny, but still leaves me with little impression a few days after reading them.

They are interesting as a piece of pre-AIDS gay theater, a time period I haven’t read much work in, and some research reveals that the play was groundbreaking in showing Arnold as both unrepentantly effeminate, but with the universal desire to raise a family and be loved.

The three plays follow Arnold, a gay man and drag queen, and Ed, a bisexual teacher as they meet each other, break-up, become friends, and then perhaps forge a path to something more.

International Stud shows their meeting and first parting as Ed is uncomfortable with his bisexuality (or really uncomfortable with showing the gay part of it, publicly or privately) and his eventual leaving Arnold for Laurel). The play has a unique structure, two monologues, a phone-call, another monologue, then a final scene. There’s not much more I feel compelled to say about it: it’s a simple, funny story which ends sadly and I have little affection for.

Fugue in a Nursery picks up a year later, Laurel and Ed are living together, and Laurel wants to meet Arnold, who has since started seeing a young man name Alan. This play deals with the difficulty of intimacy, as well as the challenge of people accepting a relationship with a person their partner used to love. Each of the characters is convinced that the other three don’t really want to be in the relationship their in, all while insisting that they are perfectly content with where they are. Fierstein also explores the difficulty of giving partners what they need or being courageous enough to ask for what one needs in any given relationship.

If the setup and theme is more interesting than International Stud, the execution is far more muddled. We bounce from conversation to conversation, sometimes seeing the past and present simultaneously with little but the actor’s skill to differentiate. I found myself far more interested in the ideas than in the people actually espousing or living with them.

Oddly enough Widows and Children First! was my favorite of the bunch, and was the only one which managed to elicit actual emotion from me. Many years later we see Arnold raising a teenage boy, David, and Ed lives on his couch as he has recently separated from Laurel. Arnold’s mother is coming to visit and everyone is in a tizzy as to how it will go.

Fierstein consciously models the set-up, language, and action on traditional sitcoms to both show how gay families are no different than any other, and to lull the reader into a false sense of security before he pulls out the “very special episode” fodder for the end of the show.

We learn early on the Alan is dead and only that it wasn’t from being hit by a car. Little is said about him as Arnold tries his best to raise David right (a good, if mischievous kid) and impress his mother. Throughout the trilogy Arnold has never been shy about pleading for attention and emotional support, indeed his clinginess in this regard is one of the aspects I personally dislike about him the most, but in the final part of this final play he finally pleads for understanding both from his callous mother, and also from Ed, a man who has always kept Arnold at arm’s length without ever actually pushing him entirely away.

In this last play Fierstein shows the impossibility of fulfilling basic human needs when the people around you refuse to see you as an acceptable expression of humanity, and it does so to great effect.