OUT by Greg Campbell. Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse. July 2 at 1:45 pm, July 4 at 4:30 pm, July 6 at 7:30 pm, July 7 at 11:15 pm, July 8 at 5:45 pm, July 9 at 2:15 pm. Buy tickets. Rating: NNNN
The great thing about Fringe coinciding with Pride is that you can see Greg Campbell’s terrific solo coming out play and then head over to the festivities. Or vice versa.
Campbell plays Glen, a Montrealer whose queer liberation is stuck somewhere between that of his two friends, the out-and-proud Mario and the closeted Dmitri. Glen’s grown up in a stern Scots-Canadian family, with an alcoholic father and a timid, overprotective mother.
When the three friends bus down to New York’s 1977 Pride Parade – politically charged because of recent homophobic remarks by Anita Bryant – it changes their lives forever.
Campbell’s characterizations of everyone from a hippie gay support group leader to an otherworldly drag queen are simultaneously visual, funny and moving, and director Clinton Walker stages each moment clearly and effectively.
Two standout sections include an energized conversation after a screening of The Boys In The Band, and a post-coital scene between Glen and one of his glamorous co-stars in a production of The Boy Friend.
