Due to traveling and apathy, I've had no Pride this month until last night when I attended a rather gay event, namely the Human Race Theatre's production of Take Me Out, a tale about a baseball superstar who comes out. Since last night's performance was a special(ly discounted) Greater Dayton LGBT Center Pride performance, everybody's who's anybody in Dayton's gay community was there, so it was fun to see some people I hadn't seen in a while.

The set was done well, diamond-shaped with a dugout on one side, a lockerroom on the other and a combination home plate/pitchers mound in the center. Cannily crafted stadium lights and lockers of decreasing size gave an interesting sense of perspective to make the stadium seem larger, and good sound effects of crowd noise and stadium echo (even during Executive Director Kevin Moore's obligatory thank the sponsors/pitch the new season speech) made the theatre seem even more like a ballpark. As at Dayton Dragons games, that the stadium (err, theatre) was packed, added to the excitement and fun. After Kevin's speech, the play got off to a traditional baseball start with the singing of the national anthem but without a soloist to help us on, leaving the audience to stumble through the words on our own without much help from the baseball players/actors on stage. We kept up the baseball motif as the play progressed, too, standing up in the second act for a seventh inning stretch to sing, what else, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

When it comes to the actual play, I really didn't find the plot as gripping as it might have been. The newly out superstar, Darren Lemming (played by Lindsay Smiling), never really gained my sympathy, not even after the play's denouement. The play's narrator of sorts, Kippy (played by David Marantz), was likeable, and Marantz covered up somewhat for at least one awkward moment when he seemed to be waiting for Smiling to say a line.

I was a bit disappointed in another part of the play, a heavily-billed feature that was probably responsible for drawing much of the play's gay audience — the full-frontal male nudity galore. It was tasteful and integral to the plot (OMG, a faggot's in the lockerroom looking at my jewels!), and (another kudo to the set designer Dick Block) the batting deck artfully converted to a working showerroom, but most of the actors were not prime physical specimens (not being a baseball fan, I don't know — are major league baseball players actually fairly flabby?) and thus nothing really titillating to look at. There was one exception, one of the Hispanic players on the team (and unfortunately I don't know if he was Martinez [Greg Hall] or Rodiguez [Ramon Gaitan]) was in fact well hung and tight, with a small sexy tattoo right above his pert buttocks. Hello!

The highlight of the evening was a surprise to me because he's someone I know online (I won't reveal his gay.com screenname, but his profile there features a photo of him with a very sexy beard and moustache). Offline he is Brian McKnight and his portrayal of nerdy gay accountant Mason "Mars" Marzac was terrific. McKnight got all the sterotypically gay gestures and mannerisms down pat to great humorous effect, and he did what Smiling could not do, make me like his character. If you ever have the chance to see McKnight perform, do!

Remember when Joan Crawford, towards the end of her career, filled in for her daughter Christina on the soap opera The Secret Storm, playing the part of a character 30 years younger than she was? Okay, I don't remember it either, except from Mommie Dearest, but from all accounts, it didn't go well. I saw something this afternoon that reminded me of that, another actor playing a part 30 years younger, but apparently this actor's been doing it for over 30 years. Ugh.

Ted in 1973 as JC

Ted now
(airbrushed?)

I was a bit surprised at the overall depiction of JC, which seemed to waver between showing him as a man and as divine. Ted's certainly got the benedictory hand gestures down pat, which, if the historical JC did as much as Ted did, would make me think he was a bit full of himself. But they did show JC as being tired of his duties and unsure of his future, both not wanting to die and doubtful as to how he'd be remembered. Yet in Gethsemane talking to God he ends up calling what's about to happen God's will. Earlier talking to Judas JC says Judas has to do what he's going to do, and later Judas too says God chose him to carry out his plans. All this should meet with the approval of conservative Christians who see the Crucifixion as the only way God could save us all from eternal hellfire (the only way an all powerful God could save us?!). Yet the Crucifixion is the end of Jesus Christ Superstar — there is no Resurrection.

Actually that's not quite true. Ted did his agonizingly long dying on the Cross and ascended into heaven (very theatrical but not at all Biblically accurate) to thunderous applause, and then shazam! he's resurrected along with the rest of the cast, taking their bows before Dayton's provincial audience who rewards them with a standing ovation. Jesus, Dayton's faithful Broadway Series viewers will give anything that comes to town a standing ovation, but that's another blog entry.