The temptation to use the stage as a pulpit is as old as theater itself. Sometimes it works; racial tolerance is one of the strong themes of "South Pacific" (currently in production by Valley Performing Arts), but it doesn't get in the way of the main subjects of love, hope, war and music. Perseverance Theatre's recent "The Mountaintop" about Martin Luther King, Jr. came close to crossing into cheerleading in its final moments but overall stood up as a story. But too often one encounters playwrights who indulge in preaching at the expense of the art of drama.
I anticipated that might be the case with "Perfect Arrangement," a gay-themed two-act now being performed as the inaugural work at the reopened Out North. Instead, the show is yawn-free, entertaining, first-rate theater with fine writing, believable characters, real -- if extraordinary -- situations and a point that transcends the details of the plot.
"Perfect Arrangement" opens in 1950 with Bob and Millie Martindale at home entertaining their next-door neighbors, Jim and Norma Baxter, along with Bob's boss, Theodore, and his wife Kitty.
Bob (Jay Burns) is in the personnel department at the U.S. State Department, an "inquisitor" chiefly occupied with rooting out suspected communists. The boss praises his work and tells him his responsibilities will now include rooting out "deviantes," that is: homosexuals.
Problem. Unbeknownst to the boss (Alex Lannin) or his airhead wife (Laura Carpenter) but quickly evident to the audience is the fact the Martindales and the Baxters are married, but not to each other. Assertive, practical Norma (Krista Schwarting), who works in Bob's department, and mousey, poetic Millie (Karina Becker) live in the house where the party, and the whole play, takes place while Bob and school teacher Jim (Daniel Alvarez-Lemp) live in the adjacent residence. The arrangement of the title allows them to present the facade of "normal" couples while maintaining same-sex domiciles.
When the boss is gone, Bob assures the families the new complexity can be handled. He has rank and respect in the department; he'll see that the hunt is limited to only the most flagrant suspects, not people who appear as beacons of normal conventionality.
Norma has doubts. The cleansing of communists began with a handful of clear sympathizers only to spread to thousands of suspects, summarily dismissed on often flimsy evidence, due to Bob's diligence, she notes. Her concerns auger a crisis that erupts when it turns out that one of the targeted "deviants," promiscuous-and-open-about-it Barbara (Rachel Gregory), had an old affair with Millie.
The first act is tight, fast-moving, effective comedy. Playwright Topher Payne, who flew up from Atlanta, Georgia, to see the opening night, said, "If you want people to listen, start by making them laugh," and he does that very well. The chat bristles with wit while neatly laying out the circumstances. Lines are laced with period radio and television talk, "Gollies!" (before we get to stronger expletives) and references to product advertisements. Double entendres kept the crowd chortling; for instance, the secret passage between the boys' house and the girls' is through a closet.
In the second act, themes germinated early on begin to grow leaves. The cleverness remains while the tone grows more somber. There's the history of the "lavender scare" and the early coalescence of gay advocacy organizations. But there's also probing of more universal matters. How does one separate personal issues from professional ones? When do you stand up to the boss? What if the boss is the whole U.S. Government, from President Truman on down? What is the balance between being comfortable in your surroundings versus being exhausted at maintaining a ruse? What is the emotional cost of being secure? Of taking a stand? What is love worth to you?
Heavy stuff, but despite one oration that could afford to lose two or three paragraphs, the story of human emotion prevails over political thesis and it kept me guessing how it would turn out until the end.
The time of the action is intriguing. It's 20 years before the Stonewall Riots, often cited as the start of the modern gay rights movement. Twenty years earlier, in Herbert Hoover's administration, personal sexual privacy was of minor importance; the Secretary of State famously said, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." However, pouring the alcohol that flows throughout the play would have been a crime in 1930. I couldn't help but wonder which of our current attitudes will be turned upside down 20 years from now. Who are the "deviants" for whom one dare not speak up in 2015?
The actors, directed by Colby Bleicher, are generally excellent, though Burns' diction could benefit by slowing down some of his lines. The set is another good bit of work from Brian Saylor.
It's the first show by the nascent Walking Shadows Theatre Company, formed by colleagues who have worked on many successful projects in the past, including Burns and Schwarting. One of the directors, Shelly Wozniak, said they came together in hopes of producing a "professional level" of edgier theater in Anchorage. "Perfect Arrangement" is a swell start.
It was announced on opening night, over champagne and snacks, that this show marks the "official" reopening of Out North. The facility closed in 2013 and had hosted intermittent events since then.
PERFECT ARRANGEMENT will be presented at Out North Contemporary Art House, 3800 Debarr Rd. at 7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday through April 4. Tickets, $20, are available at www.outnorth.org.