Safety Dance: Secrets Surface, Forcing the ‘Our House’ Family to Face Facts

TOSOS (“The Other Side of Silence”)

Presents the World Premiere of

Barry Boehm’s “Our House”

Directed by Mark Finley

Starring Christopher Borg, Tim Burke, CJ DiOrio, Jalen Ford, Nancy Slusse, & Jon Spano

At A.R.T./New York Theatres

(502 W. 53rd St., off 10th Ave.)

Wed. through Sat. at 7pm; Sun. at 2pm

Through March 21

Tickets ($45 – $70) are available at www.tososnyc.org 

BY SCOTT STIFFLER | Two baskets brimming with black walnuts thrown at the hollyhocks, hot tub, and rainbow flag of ACT UP veteran Andy and husband Stanley soak the opening scene of Our House with ample cause for concern. Enough to cast a pall over the impending wedding of young couple Brendan and Eugene?

Perhaps. But be that as it may, the greatest threat to safety  won’t come from outside forces or problems particular to gay identity. It’s the cascade of surface-breaching secrets that gives Barry Boehm’s two-act comedy its messy forward momentum.

“I love family dramas,” said Mark Finley, when asked what made him want to direct the world premiere of Our House. “And I think this sets up a family drama that’s a little bit unusual–but it taps into issues that are certainly contemporary,” noted Finley, of the play that takes place in Iowa, the year before marriage equality is recognized by the Supreme Court.

Contemporary though its concerns may be, Finley is right to position Our House as “a little bit unusual” when viewed alongside the totality of output from TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence), which proudly and accurately bills itself as “New York City’s oldest and longest producing LGBTQIA+ theater company.” (In its early days, portrayals of same-sex couplings were common–but talk of marriage equality was not.)

TOSOS was founded in 1974 by, their website notes, a trio of artists: Off-Off Broadway veteran playwright Doric Wilson, cabaret star Billy Blackwell, and writer-actor-director Peter del Valle, for the purpose of pursuing “an open and honest exploration of the many expressions of the gay life style…and a broadening of gay and straight attitudes through the creative process.” Three years and 21 productions later–with “artistic director Doric Wilson’s bartending tips no longer able to cover expenses”–TOSOS ceased to be.

Then, in 2002, sole surviving founder Wilson paired with director Finley to form TOSOS II. The revived company (which has long since dropped the “II”) would go on to present a flurry of acclaimed plays, cabarets, and staged readings–including a 2002 run of Wilson’s 1982-written Street Theater, performed to SRO audiences at West 28th Street’s Eagle NYC bar. (The bawdy, rowdy “I was there” telling of events immediately preceding the Stonewall Uprising had another Eagle NYC run just two years ago.)

“We have that sort of a legacy and historical gay cannon,” notes Finely, “and we’re always sort of pointing to historical issues in the plays that we do.” But there’s an equal commitment to the contemporary–and the future. To that end, says Finley, “In our next season, [number] 27,  I’m going to be sliding down the bench and working with an interim artistic director, Igor Golden. And his focus is to broaden our reach, generationally. We don’t want to lose the upcoming generation by just focusing too much on ours.”

Says Finley of current offering Our House, “We’re always trying to look at stories that are sort of off the beaten track. And this is the story of a couple that lived in New York during the ACT UP days, and moved back to one of their family homes in Iowa–and the neighborhood has certainly changed from when they grew up…and then you’ve got two kids who’ve come to Iowa to get married. They could have gotten married in D.C. but they didn’t. Why?”

Finley sees in Boehm’s work (“a smart script”) parallels to one of his favorites, Lanford Wilson. “For me,” says Finley, Our House “has ripple effects of [Wilson’s] Fifth of July. It’s got that American realism feel to it, first of all. And second of all, this play takes place in a back yard on a summer evening. It’s like a 24-hour period; a generational family comedy because of the way people speak with each other–overlapping dialogue and underlying issues that bubble to the surface.”

The playwright and director’s resolve to let things simmer and swirl rather than force them to a showy boiling point may well send audiences back into the world slightly disoriented–but better suited to contemplate a multitude of loose ends.

“What we discovered during rehearsal is,” says Finley, “it does not play if you lean into a sense of danger or too far into the comedy. You really have to lean into the strength of your characters…How they leave the room tells you what they’re going to do–that’s theater.”

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