Playwright: Joe DiPietro. At: Bailiwick Chicago at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont. Tickets: 773-327-5252; www.fmenchicago.com; $25. Runs through: July 25
Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler's groundbreaking 1897 play, La Ronde, has 10 pithy scenes each portraying a sexual couple not married to each other. A sleeps with B, then B with C, then C with D and so on back to A. Schnitzler's work has spawned hundreds of adaptationsmovies, musicals, operas and dramasof which Fucking Men is a contemporary all-male version of the thoroughly heterosexual original.
Author Joe DiPietro retains Schnitzler's scene structure and characters such as the soldier, student, sex worker, actor, writer and married guy. DiPietro makes changes only as an all-male cast requires: female prostitute to street hustler, female nurse to male tutor, the married guy is married to another guy. DiPietro also wisely remains thematically faithful to Schnitzler.
Schnitzler's play was sexually frank for 1897, but couldn't portray sex acts on stage, so it's not about who does what to whom, but about WHY people come together sexually. Making no moral judgments, Schnitzler clinically analyzed sex from the perspectives of desire, opportunity, commerce, class and manipulation ( both psychological and physical ) . As such, Schnitzler's work transcends its hetero limits: straight or LGBTQY, people sex each other for the same reasons.
Also without judging, DiPietro adds significant gay material dealing broadly but believably with coming out, living in the closet, sexual violence, honesty about HIV and sustaining long relationships. The scenes become deeper as the 90-minute play unfolds, peaking at Scene 5 between the two married guys. Maybe it's the peak for me 'cause I'm a married guy; perhaps another scene will speak to you more pointedly.
DiPietro is a master entertainer so one assumes Fucking Men will have punch lines, and it doesn't disappoint. Older Man: "You're hot!" Younger Man: "No, just young." Soldier to Hustler: "The barracks are none of your fucking business!" Hustler to Soldier: "Actually, the barracks are my entire business." But DiPietro also knows when to speak with simple sincerity and poignancy as some characters long for love and respect or at least security. That, too, harks back to Schnitzler and is the same for homo or hetero.
Director Tom Mullen elicits smart, nuanced performances from his attractive cast of 10 non-union actors ( several being new faces to me ) who represent a range of types, ages and races. There are flashes of skin, but remember Fucking Men isn't a play about sex itself. John Rotonda ( scenic ) and Jared B. Moore ( lighting ) have created an airy, contemporary and place-neutral scenic design of slats and back-lighting that suits Mullen's fluid staging. Composer Laurence Mark Wythe's original music effectively heightens many moments.
Fucking Men is the perfect Pride Month show, and is a welcome way for newly constituted Bailiwick Chicago to pick up where Bailiwick Repertory left off.