The Death and Resurrection of Burlesque

The Nance at the Lyceum Theater

            The Nance, a new play by Douglas Carter Beane, is, to put it simply, nothing less than a brilliant, triumphant magnum opus that gives me hope for the future of comedy and of playwriting.  The play benefits most greatly from a seamless cooperation between an absolutely magnificent Nathan Lane in the title role and the fluid, effortless script of Mr. Beane (who updated Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella for Broadway and wrote the book for the absolutely ghastly Lysistrata Jones of December 2011-January 2012).  Both Mr. Lane and Mr. Beane are at their best here, the playwright with a mastery of the language and the humor of the 1930s as well as a delicate but perfect balance between those age-old rivals, comedy and drama; and the actor with a splendorous, breathtakingly flawless performance as a witty and charming yet egotistically defiant burlesque “nance” actor of Depression-era New York.  A nance, for those as yet unaware—though Mr. Beane’s script makes the unfamiliar feel right at home with a razor-sharp sense of limited exposition—was a stereotypically gay character in burlesque shows of the period, usually played by a straight man.  But Mr. Lane’s character, Chauncey Miles, really is gay, and must submit not only to the censorious limits on burlesque brought forth by the LaGuardia administration but also its anti-homosexual laws that allowed police to arrest scores of gay men on charges of  “degenerate disorderly conduct” or “loitering.”

            Nathan Lane is a whirlwind actor.  He delivers Mr. Beane’s tongue-in-cheek witticisms with ease and talent, and practically obliterates any designs the rest of the cast might have toward a star turn.  These (mostly) not unworthy performances come to us by way of a relatively small but perfectly adequate cast.  There’s appealingly grouchy Lewis J. Stadlen, who plays Chauncey’s boss and fellow burlesque comedian Efram.  Jonny Orsini, meanwhile, chose to play Chauncey’s lover, Ned, as something of a pinhead, which is a little misguided given the complexity with which Mr. Beane has endowed this character, but not so much of an impediment as to destroy the value of the relationship within the context of the play.  The burlesque strippers who form the other half of Efram's Irving Place Revue (Cady Huffman, Andréa Burns, and Mylinda Hull) are a little too earnest for the ideal delivery of The Nance’s ‘30s-appropriate lines, many of which are somewhat sickly-sweet already.  Case in point—when Sylvie (Ms. Huffman), a Communist, discusses the freshly minted Social Security policy: “Everyone’s sayin’, ‘Who’s gonna pay for it, who’s gonna pay for it?'  Eighty years from now, no one’s gonna be talkin’ about who’s gonna pay for it.”  (Cue thunderous laughter and a smattering of applause.)  But really, it matters little, if at all.  This production is about the stunning waltz of Mr. Lane’s utter professionalism and precision as an actor with the radiant glory of Mr. Beane’s words.  And oh, what a dance it is!

            The burlesque scenes in The Nance, to begin with, are hysterically funny with not a trace of the historical inaccuracy that might have burdened another playwright with less love for this golden age of comedy than Mr. Beane obviously has in spades.  The jocularity of these sequences carries into the rest of the play, most notably (and predictably, though not unpleasantly) through the effervescence of Nathan Lane.  The sophisticated humor that it’s easy to yearn for on Broadway runs rampant.

            But comic brilliance is not the only thing in store at the Lyceum Theater.  As Chauncey struggles to convince his cast-mates and himself that LaGuardia’s anti-burlesque legislation is just pre-election rhetoric, and that the Irving Place crew will make it through all right, his own insecurities are laid bare against the perceived confidence necessary to be a truly great performer (as both Mr. Lane and Mr. Miles are).  There is no achievement so great as balancing the comedic and the dramatic with the same reverence for each, and this Douglas Carter Beane and Nathan Lane have done.  These are the makings of great art.