Theater Jones
A common refrain in the musical Breathe, now on the boards at Uptown Players, goes "in the dark we tell our stories."
These tales of which they speak are vignettes about gay life, none of them Earth-shattering and some more interesting than others. But even if the whole show can be characterized with the same descriptor used for the costume color scheme—beige—it is beautifully and lovingly performed by a marvelous cast of lead actors Thomas Renner, Michael Tuck, Gregory Lush, Stephanie Hall and Brandi Andrade. (There's also a chorus of five singer-dancers: Souk Borrows, Sergio Antonio Garcia, Carlos Gomez, Katharine Gentsch and Summer Kenny.)
Breathe, which features music by Dan Martin and lyrics by Michael Biello (they both contributed to the book), is woven together with new-agey "ritual" interludes. Think of it as a queer version of Ntozake Shange's 1975 "choreopoem" for black women. The subtitle for Breathe might as well be "For colorful gays who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf."
We get a coming-out story, a lesbian wedding, a presumably AIDS-related death, a priest who is a attracted to another man, an aged woman and man who lament that they don't score the pretty young things anymore, and one-half of an uptight gay couple who learns to find his inner gurlfriend.
The best songs in the show come in the "Having a Baby" segment, in which two lesbians try to decide which man in their life would be best as a sperm donor. The song "Genealogy" benefits from the vocals of Hall, by far the show's best singer, and the song "Who" is the musical's best.
The wedding reception-y music is well played by musical director Scott A. Eckert on keyboards and a string quartet. The dancers look in tiptop shape on Kelly McCain's light and airy choreography. It's all very...pretty. With Suzi Cranford's flowing off-white costumes, Andy Redmon's implied Greco-Roman temple of a set and Jason Foster's soft lighting, the whole thing resembles what you might imagine of an extended Massengill commercial.
The show isn't exactly made for more—how shall we say this?—"mature" gay folks who might be somewhat-to-incredibly jaded, but younger audience members might find some hope and sympathy, as well as a few chuckles, in these vignettes. If there's one thing that we more experienced theatergoers too often take for granted, it's the younger generation who may not have seen stories like these, told in such a theatrical manner.
As long as there are tales to tell, there will be those who are willing to listen.
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