TM

I've avoided writing about the coronavirus because 1) it's all you hear about already, 2) I don't have anything original to say and 3) I thought this blog could be a respite from all the news out there. But now a big name has died of the virus, someone I'd write about anyway, playwright Terrence McNally.  He was in his 80s, and had had lung cancer, so was particularly vulnerable, but it's still a shock.

For over 50 years he's been one of America's most notable playwrights.  In the early 60s, he was Edward Albee's boyfriend, but soon established himself as an independent voice.  His first major production on Broadway was in 1965--And Things That Go Bump In The Night.  About a dysfunctional family, it was not well-reviewed and closed after a couple of weeks, but some people thought it was remarkable.

His one-act Next, starring James Coco, was an off-Broadway hit in 1969 and he started to gain a reputation.  Bad Habits, a comedy set in a nursing home, transferred from off-Broadway to Broadway in 1974.  And his farce set in a gay bathhouse, The Ritz, ran a year on Broadway in 1975.  It won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play and was also turned into a pretty weird Richard Lester comedy, starring the original cast, with screenplay by McNally in 1976.

Not yet 40, he was now well-established.  He soon started writing books to Broadway musicals as well, such as The Rink (1984), Kiss Of The Spider Woman (1993), Ragtime (1998) and The Fully Monty (2000), winning a couple of Tonys and being nominated for more.

But it was for his plays he was best known, and he started hitting his stride in the 1980s. In 1982, he wrote It's Only A Play, a farce about a disastrous opening night.  It was later done off-Broadway and years after that on Broadway.  I actually saw a production on my birthday in the early 1990s in Los Angeles.  It happened to be the night the Rodney King riots started.  When the play ended, star Charles Nelson Reilly came out and announced we should all go straight home, the streets aren't safe.

Then there was Frankie And Johnny In The Claire De Lune, a two-hander off-Broadway hit in 1987.  It's a lovely romance about two troubled people. Neither character is meant to be too glamorous. The original cast was Kathy Bates and F. Murray Abraham.  The Broadway cast in 2002 was Edie Falco and Stanley Tucci.  When Garry Marshall turned it into a movie in 1991, it starred Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino.

McNally often wrote on gay themes, and created a memorable play about AIDS, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, in 1991. (I saw a production starring Nathan Lane, who appeared in a number of McNally plays.  After the show was over the cast came out and answered questions.  I thought Lane acted like a jerk.) Another gay-themed play was Love! Valour! Compassion! which opened off-Broadway in 1994 and transferred to Broadway in 1995.  It won McNally the Best Play Tony.  He won it again the next year for Master Class, about famed opera soprano Maria Callas in her declining days (and offering women a knockout lead role).

In 1993 he wrote A Perfect Ganesh, about two Western women on a trip to India.  It was not one of his more popular plays, but was nominated for a Pulitzer.

Probably his most controversial play was Corpus Christi in 1997--a retelling of the gospels with gay characters.  McNally even received a fatwa.  The play (not one of his best, I'd say) seems to be more personal than religious.

He continued writing and presenting work for the rest of his life, including Deuce (2007) and Mothers And Sons (2014), the latter receiving a Tony Nomination for Best Play.  Last year, he received a fitting Tony--Special Award for Lifetime Achievement.