‘To My Girls’ Is A Weekend Of Gay Hell In Palm Springs

Here is the idea. Follow a group of gay men, rock out in booze, and watch the zingers fly and the drama explode. This familiar formula — in life and fiction — can be enjoyable a few minutes and grueling minutes later.

The specter of Mart Crowley’s legendary gathering of alcoholics and assholes, The boys in the bandpause JC Lee’s 90-minute match To my girls (Phase 2, until April 24). Here, three supposed friends (and two Godot-like missing on the way) rent a house in Palm Springs for the weekend to reconnect on the surface, but really — this seems to be what excites them most — creates a music video to get their attention. ideas on social networks. Just like in any drama where the party is at the center, secrets, lies, and truths will soon surface and the weekend will explode.

The first mystery when Castor (Maulik Pancholy), Leo (Britton Smith) and Curtis (Jay Armstrong Johnson) reunite is why they are friends, or remain friends. They’re in their late 30s, and the affection between them seems to stem from age-old memories of clubbing at (a generation’s first specific reference warning!) Sugarland in Brooklyn.

There is the transactional nature of sharing their social media posts. But they don’t seem to like each other. They don’t act like friends. Curtis is a racially insensitive user and doesn’t bother to hide it — and why any person, less than two gay people of color, would choose to spend time around him is a mystery. The play seems to be about the end of their friendship rather than their half-hearted maintenance.

Sometimes people say “it’s a lot” when trying to express how large or complex or messy a situation is. And so it is with To my girls, which is the definition of “a lot”. If you get past the puzzle of why any of them are together at the weekend, you can observe the setting and mull over what Jonathan Adler looks like — and then one character says the same thing. the same, similar.

The show proudly displays references to the gay scene, very specific pop culture, and hopes the audience knows them too. The characters define themselves as millennials – but the repetitive generational patrol in the play can be the most predictable and boring way to gauge anyone’s personality, especially in the sub-series. theory.

The setting is a parlor rental in Palm Springs owned by Bernie (Bryan Batt), a gay man in his 60s who is confusingly written as young men. It has feather-trimmed tarps and Curtis is strictly instructed not to water the palm tree because it is resinous and can become moldy.

Like that sentence, many people say when they hit, hit it beautifully like: “I know Tinder in the Valley sounds like the title of a romance novel but I assure you it doesn’t.” Hoopler is described as a dating app for gay men who like basketball. When the group became the Pussycat Dolls, they all wanted to be “Nicole” and struggled to name anyone else. As Leo, Smith especially plays a leading role in comedy and drama.

“I like to think of tenants as part of an extended family,” says Bernie. But in reality, he wants Instagram likes and Curtis is an influencer and so will provide some publicity through filming there. “Oh. See? It actually got better,” replied Castor, with enough sharpness to make you think the play would explore the flaws of what “gay community” means.

Curtis is a gay type of guy: white, hot, over 30 and selling himself like a brand. The characters of the play have burned him over and over again for this. “You promote a handful of brands to a crowd of fanatics, Curtis, you’re not the Kardashians. But we are indebted to your relentless self-promotion,” said Castor.

Castor also told him: “You are a handsome white guy with a good job and I am like an Asian writer who works at Starbucks to pay the bills. And Castor, we also believe, really loved him, and Curtis knew this and used him to feed his own vanity. He seeks the same validation from Leo, after he confesses to a longtime love. And then muscular Omar (Noah J. Ricketts) steps in, leading to more questionable behavior from Curtis.

Joan Marcus

“I am young. I was very naive. I’m overly romantic [Andrew Holleran’s classic gay-themed novel] Dancer From the Dance and i think i watched Sex and the city Castor said when he moved to New York City at a young age. Then, on social media about the group’s reunion purpose, he said: “I refuse to allow this weekend to revolve around some deified millennial appeal to confirm .” He’s wise to a lot of things and it seems unthinkable that he’s always willing to hide his private life.

Bernie tells the group the central truth of the play: “I hope you all know that you don’t have to be friends with people once they turn into someone you don’t like. The sooner you realize it, the happier you will be” – but this fact is thwarted by another revelation about Bernie later, which turns the group and audience against him.

Leo delivers some great takedowns aimed at Curtis, white privilege, and the “racism of dressing like a cult,” as he notes that he, as was a Black man and Curtis’s very different experiences of Provincetown.

But one wished that Leo, Castor, Curtis, and others existed as characters and not as speakers of speeches from the social groups to which they were assigned. Curtis is a louse in every way, but it’s not surprising that a character exists as he does in near-silent times, essentially muttering “I’m sorry.”

The play’s title comes from an elegant, flowery piece of literature, written by Castor on the day same-sex marriage was legalized in New York. But the character who wrote the “to my girls” speech is not someone we meet on stage, unless he bangs his head that day and briefly thinks he’s actually channeling Andrew Holleran.

Either way, for this critic, the end of the play makes no sense. A friendship brought to the right conclusion by the right person. And then, moments later, it seems to be forgotten as the group dances again… just because. The exact ending, according to the play’s theme, should be the end of a friendship, or a realization or something derived from that end. Perhaps one felt the performance needed to end in a “rising” state, and so it continued with the pull and return to the dance. Hint weird expression To my girls too scared to follow its own dark premise.