THEATER REVIEW: YANK

Ken Burn’s upcoming documentary The War serves as a potent reminder of America’s healthy affinity for the Greatest Generation and all things World War II. A simpler time, a nobler time, a time when men were men and the bad guys branded themselves with easily-recognizable insignias. Yank! a new play at the Gallery Players, taps into that nostalgia while also exposing its inaccuracies. A gay love story meets big showy musical, Yank! is both innovative and familiar, and lots and lots of fun.

The show opens with our narrator reading from a diary he found in a junk shop. The device, though tired, works well enough here: the diary entries become both the framework for the plot and, later, a major plot point. When our narrator shurgs off his sweatshirt after a haunting opening number, he transforms into journal’s author, sending the action from present day San Francisco to Fort Bliss, 1945. Stu (Bobby Steggert) shows up for basic training a shy, baby-faced kid unable to handle a rifle and too afraid to strip down for the showers. (The rest of the cast, it should be noted, has no such problem). He knows that he’s different, and hopes the army will teach him to be a man – whether that’s by shooting a gun or fantasizing about Betty Grabel.

Stu meets Mitch (Alexia deToledo), a French Canadian stunner (which, why? Just to justify deToldeo’s accent?), who shamelessly flirts with Stu but can’t quite find the courage to take the next step. The plot follows the basic war romance convention – will these kids get together? Will their love survive the war? Will the leading men take a bullet from the Japs? - with a twist: Will the Military Police send Stu and Mitch to prison for their degenerate acts?

The play promotes itself as a big, bold 40s style musical, and it delivers; written by David Zellnik with music by his brother, Joseph, Yank! lovingly sends up the clichés of the genre (the company is made up of a braniac from Boston, a Brooklyn hothead, a Tennessee hick, and a Sicilian immigrant: “one of every kind – except a negro”) while embracing its joy and energy.

The script has a few clunky lines (“Don’t you think it would behoove you to know a fellow solider?” Mitch asks Stu, in his clumsy French-Canadian patois). But the Zelnick’s should be commended for flirting with convention and still managing to pack some surprises in a story you know can’t have a happy ending – and for making you believe, up until the very last act, that it might. It mostly avoids didacticism while providing a nuanced look at gays in the military – at least, as nuanced as one can be in a musical. Sure, it’s chock full of every single gay stereotype (the lesbian WAC, the promiscuous marine) but each are lovingly rendered and as fully developed as the genre allows. Part of the joy of a throwback show like this are the clichés –as long as they’re well written (which they are), and the jokes hit (more often than not) who cares?

As a musical, it delivers; the score sounds as if it’s been lifted right from an MGM movie musical, and fills the Gallery Playhouse to the brim. It’s a show of standards, and Zelnick hits the mark: five part harmonies, company-wide dance numbers, gorgeous jazzy ballads, pitch-perfect swing.

Yank! provides some truly delightful, transcendent moments - - the musical cacophony of the foul-mouthed men in the steno pool (and their subsequent shapes and forms throughout the play) and thrilling tap dance duet between Stu and Artie (played by Jeffry Denman), the Yank! Magazine reporter who introduces Stu into the secret world of gays in the military. The ease with which Stu follows Artie through the complex routine in the fun, fantastic “Click” nicely parallels Stu’s earlier clumsy fumbling during weapons training – finally, Stu has found his place.

There are a few problems – the biggest being the show’s romantic lead. DeToledo, tall and dark and broad and handsome, commands attention as soon as he stand on stage. Both his looks, dark and piercing, and his voice, a low, clear baritone, perfectly encapsulate a suave 1940s leading man. But when he speaks! He lacks the presence and urgency needed to carry the lead. Maybe, because he’s so perfect in the aforementioned departments, his flaws as a thespian are especially obvious. He plays the cocksure flirt in act one with charm enough, but when Stu calls Mitch’s bluff with a late-night kiss, DeToldeo can’t convincingly convey the lust and fear that lies beneath, and only musters a flat, petulant denial. As a result, the mutual declaration of love that preceded the kiss seems too casual; the second-act reunion forced. It’s especially obvious because Doggert is so eager, so earnest and true as Stu, a scared boy who grows into a man throughout the show (just not in the way he imagined).

David Zelnick also misses an opportunity to really tease out homoerotic tension inherent within the military. He almost gets it right, but falls short by excluding poor, terrified Stu from many of these towel snapping, muscle-flexing exchanges.

It’s Jeffry Denman who’s star of the show. As Artie, he brings energy to every scene in which he appears. He gives a brash and confident portrayal as an openly hidden (but not closeted) gay man in the military. Neither angelic or nefarious, Artie does what he can for his protégée while still looking out for himself. Denman’s choreography is dynamic and innovative; the cast – some of whom play pudgy, stodgy, oafs - move with grace and fluidity. The haunting, moonshine-induced dream ballet at the end of act II could easily have been a disaster if it wasn’t so beautifully choreographed and executed.

At the play’s conclusion, Stu poses the well-worn questions about who’s really brave – the brash boys on the front line or the queers who aren’t afraid to be who they really are. But with so many soldiers, both gay and straight, are currently facing death and disfigurement in Iraq, the question feels like a false dichotomy.

The more graceful and obvious point is made without having to offer any anvil-like dialog. Yank! is so true to it’s period and so lovingly re-creates the 1940s that the romantic conflict feels almost charming and retro – imagine two men who have to hide their romance! It’s only after leaving the theater that the full effect sets in -- that while servicemen may now face a different war, a different geography, and a different time, the treatment of gays in the military remains the same.