Theater Review: Next Fall

Questions About Faith and Relationships
By Lauren Yarger
Questions about life, death and reality collide in Geoffrey Nauffts' play Next Fall, presented by Naked Angels Off-Broadway at the Jay Sharp Theater.

As Luke (Patrick Heusinger) lies in a coma after being struck by a car, his family and friends gather in the waiting room for news of Luke’s condition. Tensions mount, not just from their concern about Luke’s condition, but because Luke’s uptight Southern Christian father and stepmother, Butch (Cotter Smith) and Arlene (Connie Ray), don’t know that Adam (Patrick Breen) is more than just a friend. He’s Luke’s lover.

Holly (Maddie Corman), who owns the shop where Luke, an unemployed actor, sells candles, tries to keep Butch and Arlene at bay while comforting Adam, who waits for medical updates given only to “family” members. Luke’s other friend, Brandon (Sean Dugan), a somewhat superfluous character, also is on hand.

Through flashbacks (nicely directed by Sheryl Kaller on a hospital room set designed by Wilson Chin, complete with walls that slide out to create the couple’s apartment) we see the developments of the relationship between Luke, a Christian who struggles with his homosexuality and who prays for forgiveness after sex, and the unchurched, hypochondriac-prone Adam (religion is too exclusive, judgmental and has too many rules, he tells us).

Nauffts throws in a full bucket of Atheism 101 questions like “what about the Mongolian sheep herder who’s never heard of Jesus? (often answered in a hit-and-run or punch line fashion) to explain the conflicts of faith (Luke grew up in the church; Adam didn’t really have a religion) between the men.

There are some more thought-provoking moments, however, like conversations about evolution, Adam’s inability to be with Luke or find out information at the hospital and Luke’s response to how he can be a Christian and live a gay lifestyle.

“We’re all sinners,” he says, “That just happens to be mine.”

Adam also gives fodder for some good theological pondering when he questions how it is possible for a gay person like Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was murdered and who might not have known the Lord, to go to hell while those who killed him might be able to repent and go to heaven.

Religion is a wall the two can’t seem to break down, but soon we discover that it’s not religion itself, but Luke’s inability to put Adam first in his life that form its foundation.

“I want you to love me more than Him,” Adam says.

Luke’s desire to honor God and his father causes constant struggles. In one flashback, Luke, after “degaying” their apartment in anticipation of a visit from Butch finally agrees with Adam’s urging that it’s time to tell his father (and subsequently his younger brother, whom he’d intended to tell “next fall”) that he is gay. Just as Luke starts to make the disclosure, the previously unexpressive Butch, whom we suspect knows about his son’s inclination, expresses pride in his son’s acting career and Luke remains silent.

If some of the stuff is glib and stereotypic (Butch and Arlene are racists among other things and Brandon, the supportive apparently conservative Christian friend turns out to be gay himself—a device showing up more in more in plays as if to say, “see Christians aren’t perfect either"), Adam’s gradual understanding of Luke’s belief is a somewhat refreshing twist. Holly provides some comic relief.

Next Fall at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 416 W. 42nd St., NYC has been extended through Aug. 8. For tickets and information, visit http://www.nakedangels.com/nextfall/

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