“Jeffrey” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

Somewhat Recommended ** “Jeffrey” is a period piece, written in 1993 by Paul Rudnick, about gay life, love, and sex in an era of AIDS. We witness the hesitations that a young gay waiter and aspiring actor named Jeffrey Calloway (Juwon Tyrell Perry) has about engaging in meaningful relationships during the AIDS epidemic. Should he have to remain celibate in order to adjust to circumstances, or is this an unacceptable compromise with himself? Tested by adversity and egged on by his friend Sterling Farrell (Kalani Whitford) and his partner Darius (Sean Findley) and others, Jeffrey eventually finds the courage to follow his heart and becomes sexually involved with Steve Howard (Magdiel Carmona), who is HIV-positive. The audience learns how Jeffrey, his peers, and his inamorados think about sex and romance at a time when the possibility of getting AIDS from an intimate partner was very likely, which could mean a potential death sentence.

The current virtual production by PrideArts, directed by David Belew, unfortunately has its failings: namely that we have to see past too many complications in order to fully appreciate the deeper story. The main problem with the show is that it is impossibly told through the medium of Zoom. We can basically follow the story; but from time to time, it would get muddy. For starters, there are a number of locales in the script that have to be inferred from the dialogue. That makes the scene changes (e.g., being at a fundraiser for AIDS or at a gym or a sex club or even at a Gay Pride Parade) initially difficult to differentiate. Next the audience has to see beyond the separations inherent in the Zoom boxes to imagine settings where several characters are often next to each other. This leads to considerable confusion when the Zoom boxes called “Multiple Men” come on screen. The merging of several different actors under the category “Multiple Men” doesn’t work successfully; and at the same time, some of the characters being played by the same actor are polar opposites in temperament, sexual orientation, and personality from each other. Recognizing several different characters being played by the same actor soon begins to tax the audience. Still more confusing is when there is more than one “Multiple Men” box concurrently on our screen. At the very least, the actors playing minor roles should have changed the title of the characters they were playing in the box description so that we could distinguish among them, if not by name than by temperament.

One of the first films and Broadway plays to tackle issues of sex, love, and romance during the AIDS crisis head-on, “Jeffrey” is more of a teaching moment than anything else. What decision would any of us be prepared to make about the pursuit of our affections under these circumstances? (Hint: The current COVID-19 crisis gives us some idea of what this might feel like.) Yet the show is also intended to be a romantic comedy. Some bits about naughty bits are funny, others meant to be titillating, and still others quite a bit ho-hum. Some dialogue just goes on too long after we have already gotten the point. A 112-minute presentation is much too long on Zoom—it was a trudge in spots—and a much shorter adapted script would have worked much better. Deleting a number of the minor characters would have provided more focus and done better justice to the narrative. That said, another historically significant aspect of the original production is that “Jeffrey” was one of the first to present a tapestry of gay types, thus smashing outmoded stereotypes. But on Zoom, it unfortunately becomes difficult to tease out the details that singularize the breadth of gayness within the minor characters. All that being said, the last 15 minutes made watching the show worthwhile, because it pulls the whole story together. Just as people today can die prematurely from diseases other than COVID, gay men can similarly succumb to maladies unrelated to HIV or AIDS, having nothing to do with their age or previous debility or HIV status.

Generally speaking, this is a story about facing the unforgiving circumstances of the world as it affects love. How is true love able to surmount obstacles, irrespective of one’s sexual orientation? When Jeffrey swears off sex so as not to get AIDS, his life is not fulfilling, complete, or authentic. In watching the evolution of his character, we in the audience see Jeffrey re-evaluate his life and his ideas about having intimate relationships during the AIDS epidemic. Life is too short, he concludes. However, having the audience weed through the limitations of Zoom in this current production is highly problematic. It took quite a bit of effort to fully comprehend everything that was happening. Nevertheless, I applaud the ambitiousness of trying to do this show in its entirety, even if some portions—particularly those featuring some minor characters—are lost on the audience.

The live videostream of “Jeffrey” by Chicago’s PrideArts took place online on May 18, 2021. There was only one performance.

More information about this livestream show can be found on their website, at https://pridearts.org/jeffrey-may-20/.

For a list of future LGBTQIA+ productions, please go to https://pridearts.org/.

To see what others said, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “Jeffrey”.