Arts & Entertainment

Romance and religion

Gay-themed play explores prickly subjects with humor

Published

14 years ago

February 9, 2012

Brian T. Carney

‘Next Fall’
Round House Theatre
Through Feb. 26

Chris Dinolfo as Luke, left, and Tom Story as Adam in ‘Next Fall’ at Round House Theatre. (Photo by Danisha Crosby; courtesy Round House)

Sex and spirituality — or the lack thereof — intersect in thought-provoking ways in the flawed-but-worthy play ‘Next Fall,” a 2009 piece that’s enjoying a post-Broadway local run at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md.

Luke (Chris Dinolfo) and Adam (Tom Story) meet when the former gives the latter the Heimlich maneuver to ease a panic attack at a party. He later admits it was just an excuse to get his arms around Adam, who’s older (he reluctantly admits to 40), a neurotic hypochondriac drifting through life. Luke is young and cute, a promising actor whose career is about to take off. Opposites attract, of course, and a one-night stand turns into a long-term committed relationship.

The premise may sound like a Hollywood screwball comedy, but playwright Geoffrey Nauffts (who’s played Adam in previous productions) soon dives into more serious territory. There’s another serious difference between the two men — Luke’s a devout fundamentalist Christian and Adam’s a committed agnostic. And unlike a typical screwball comedy, Nauffts’ fascinating script focuses not so much on what brings the characters together in the first place, but on what keeps them together over the years.

The play opens in a hospital. Luke has been struck by a taxi and his anxious family and friends keep vigil in the hospital waiting room. They have been summoned by the tightly wound Brandon (Alexander Strain in a somewhat underwritten role), Luke’s estranged friend who’s a thriving real estate mogul who is also struggling with Christianity and homosexuality. Adam’s friend Holly (Dawn Ursula) runs the candle shop where both Luke and Adam work at various times and who searches for meaning (and men) in a variety of New Age activities. Luke’s divorced parents have arrived from Tallahassee, Fla. Arlene (Kathryn Kelley) is fighting her own demons and the ruggedly pious Butch (Kevin Cutts) willfully ignores the signs that his son is gay. As the present-day medical drama unfolds, flashbacks move fluidly through time, tracing how the two men meet, move in together and negotiate the many compromises necessary in any relationship.

Unfortunately, the heavy-handed production at Round House Theatre frequently tramples on Nauffts’ finely wrought structure and delicately crafted language. Where the scenes should flow seamlessly together, director Mark Ramont and his design team stop the action cold after every scene with slow fades, overwrought music and awkward set changes. These painful transitions stop the play in its tracks, leaving the actors to struggle to regain their momentum when the action resumes.

This fumbling treatment also extends to some of the acting. Kelley struggles unsuccessfully with the role of Luke’s troubled hardscrabble mother Arlene who abandoned Luke when he was a toddler. She never finds her way through the complex vocal and emotional shadings of the character, missing the potent combination of desperation and guilt and anger that fuel the character and fighting against the complex rhythms of the dialogue.

Luckily, Story and Dinolfo bring passion and electricity to the central characters. The openly gay actors display an easy physicality in their onstage relationship. We see the deep physical and emotional bonds that pull them together and we also see the tense spiritual doubts that push them apart. Luke desperately and sincerely wishes that Adam could find faith so they can spend eternity together. Adam hates the fact that Luke prays for forgiveness after they have sex and refuses to come out to his parents. Story and Dinolfo make these tensions palpable and draw us into their compelling story.

They also expertly use Nauffts’ rich language to full effect. For all its serious themes and moving drama, “Next Fall” is often funny. Among other things, Nauffts explores the intriguing way humor is used in different situations: as a strategic defense, as a coping mechanism, as a weapon, as seduction, as social lubricant, as a world view. He also depicts spirituality in a sensitive and robust manner, embracing the many ways his characters find their way through an uncertain religious and ethical universe. All of them are on serious spiritual quests, whether they acknowledge it or not, and these issues come naturally to the fore as Luke battles for his life. Nauffts also captures the ebb and flow of the various long-term relationships with nuance and naturalness. It’s a rare play that tells us everything we need to know about the characters yet leaves us wanting more.

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Theater

‘Feeling Afraid’ explores life of a neurotic stand-up comic

Navigating sex, work, and possibly love in London

Published

1 day ago

June 20, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Steven Webb in ‘Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen’ (Photo by DJ Corey)

‘Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen’
Through July 12
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$55-$102
Studiotheatre.org

Wordily yet rightly titled, solo show “Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen” dives deeply into the world of a neurotic stand-up comic as he navigates sex, work, and possibly love in London.

Busy arranging hookups and dates on “The App,” the 36-year-old gay funnyman juggles a full dance card; still he’s never been in a romantic relationship. While he’s willing to give love a shot, he’s not pressed about it. As he says, he harbors no fear of dying alone.

Currently making its American premiere at Studio Theatre, this darkly humorous Edinburgh Fringe import features terrific out English actor Steven Webb as The Comedian who’s about to explore what it means to spend all his time with one man.

At Studio’s intimate Mead Theatre, Kat Heath’s minimal set says standard comedy club (fluorescent tube lighting, the mic with a long cord, a single stool backed by a rose-colored curtain), but gay playwright Marcelo Dos Santos has conjured something much more than a live comedy set.

Yes, The Comedian bounces onstage in his red Converse high tops, jeans, and pink shirt with a huge mouth emblazoned on the back, but he delivers more than jokes. At times hilariously self-deprecating, then dark, and occasionally a lesson on what makes standup work, this is a layered, well-acted piece.

With Webb (a keen caricaturist of types and voices) playing all the parts while conducting The Comedian’s hilariously frenetic interior monologue, “Feeling Afraid” takes us through a summer of love. It seems after six chaste dates with The American, our nervous hero has found Mr. Right. The American is earnest, smart, hesitant to initiate sex. He’s also well built with a beautiful smile. And strangely, he’s been medically advised not to laugh aloud.

The Comedian delights in the joys of new love: dates, first kisses, sex, and then suddenly spending all of his time with the adored. Visits to art galleries become fun. Eating home cooked meals followed by grim documentaries is a thing. The Comedian is beguiled as his own boyish figure fills out, but something isn’t right. He can’t entirely relax.

Along the way we meet the Aussie doctor, our protagonist’s longtime hookup; a young runner with some exceptional body parts; the random third in a failed threesome; grumpy working comics, male and female; and an ineffectual counselor.

Webb gives a lightning-fast performance that boggles the mind (in terms velocity and virtuosity). He can be impish, very impish. He’s nervous energy incarnate, flashing jazz hands, grimacing but handsome when still. He’s likeable, a necessity when delivering a hilariously rude joke just feet away from two stone-faced audience members. (Perhaps they were laughing on the inside? At any rate, they stayed through the end the show.)

Produced by the team behind Fringe hits “Fleabag” and “Baby Reindeer,” small stage works that were developed into major TV screen successes, “Feeling Afraid” is funny for sure, and it’s also highly confessional, sexually explicit, and raw.

Written by Dos Santos during COVID lockdown, the piece was a smash hit in the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe before finding further success in London. Its depiction of a youngish queer guy navigating the big city rings entirely true. Like so much Fringe stuff, the one-man show is delightfully lewd and standup inspired.

One little moan: the show closes cleverly but too abruptly with its star dashing offstage without sufficiently basking in the admiration and applause of his thoroughly chuffed audience.

They say third time’s a charm, and regarding “Feeling Afraid,” I’d agree. After two performance cancellations (first for laryngitis and the second involving faulty air conditioning on an especially muggy June evening), I made my third trek to Studio where I found both the actor and AC in very fine fettle. And truly, Webb’s work was more than worth the wait.