Playwright: Jonathan Tolins
At: Brown Couch at Profiles Theatre
Phone: ( 312 ) 409-2010; $12-$15
Runs through: Feb. 26
In The Twilight of the Golds, playwright Jonathan Tolins' reach exceeds his grasp. His theme is intellectually and emotionally profound, but he hasn't created characters and dialogue of equal depth. He's reminiscent at moments of Terrence McNally and Tony Kushner, but McNally is a more experienced playwright although not deeper, while Kushner dwarfs them both in intellectual substance and theatrical vitality.
Tolins offers two dimensional characters in the service of three-dimensional ideas; characters as mouthpieces for debating points rather than full-blooded individuals. It's especially apparent in Act II, in which the play's central philosophical arguments—between a man, his sister and their father—are surrounded by shallow and repetitious family recriminations. There's a reason Tolins is more successful writing for television than for theater.
Tolins' important premise is this: with advances in genetic research and engineering, what if a woman knew early in a pregnancy that her child would be deformed, retarded or gay? Would she abort or carry to term? What if her husband, parents and gay brother entered the dialogue? With the focus on the gay brother, David, The Twilight of the Golds really becomes an exploration of acceptance—bedrock, I-wouldn't-change-you-if-I-could-acceptance—of gayness as genetic and natural. Even within his own family, Tolins' hero doesn't find pure and unconditional love for what he is, as artificial societal attitudes trump nature when it comes to a gay child. With the truth revealed, David rips himself out of the family bosom forever.
The director and actors must turn Tolins' thin characters into real people, and make his sometimes-speechy dialogue sound like real conversation rather than stage talk. The Brown Couch crew isn't up to the task. They do, indeed, present the play's ideas with clarity and focus, but they aren't quite spontaneous enough to overcome the play's stagy construction and the simplistic character delineation.
David is the only character really fleshed out both as written and as acted by Jeremy Hodges. He shows us the steel behind David's boyish charm, even as he mispronounces Aida ( the opera ) and Furtwangler ( the conductor ) . The pregnant sister is the next best role. Colene Byrd reveals her conflict but seems self-conscious doing it, perhaps reaching for substance that isn't there. The roles of her husband, mom and dad for the most part are recycled Jewish family clichés performed without an ounce of Yiddishkeit. As these people quite specifically are Jews, the goyisha interpretation dilutes the play.
Director Ryan Magnuson seems more traffic cop than interpreter. Only Hodges, his most capable actor, energizes the show. Without him, scenes seem plodding and forced. Even with Hodges, Magnuson's blocking becomes predictable: when two characters disagree, they immediately move to opposite sides of the stage. All that glitters is not The Twilight of the Golds.