A Gay Masseur’s Guide to Happy Endings ★★★★

By the time Austin Jennings Boykin takes his clothes off in A Gay Masseur’s Guide to Happy Endings, he’s already emotionally naked; the shorts and t-shirt are just the last bits of protective covering to go.

As a result, and because of the production’s narrative, the nudity doesn’t feel prurient, or a silly gambit to get ticket buyers in. Boykin is reenacting a life-changing point in his life with honesty and thoughtfulness, his soul bared along with his body, which, in his career as a gay masseur, is typically undressed.

Before that climactic moment (pun genuinely unintended), Boykin’s taken the audience on an blithe ride through his life journey up to that point. A young actor from North Carolina who’s come to New York City to start his career, Boykin turns to gay massage to pay the rent, with the adjectival gay specifying that he does the massage in the nude and that the massage ends with a happy ending for the client. And no biggie. After all, a handjob is “nothing more than a gay handshake.”

And that’s not the extent of his occasional sexual limits. Boykin doesn’t always think that hooking up with a client is a bad thing, but it’s an appointment that flies off the rails — with a middle-aged gay couple who live in fancy-schmancy Greenwich, Connecticut, no less — that gets him thinking more deeply about the emotional consequences of what he’s doing.

That disastrous engagement provides the back-and-forth narrative framework for the production, and between Connecticut segments the audience hears about billionaires who think that tipping “a little extra” means a double sawback; Boykin’s awkwardness with his first client, who afterwards tells him “That was very uncomfortable”; and bon mots aplenty, including “Under the right circumstances, being objectified can make your day.”

Boykin is an appealing raconteur with charm to spare, and A Gay Masseur’s Guide works best when he compares his sex work to life as a professional actor. More of that would be welcome, as would a bigger bite from his quickly tossed line about his family resembling the Wingfields from A Glass Menagerie. But as it stands, this intimate glimpse of his life makes for an entertaining evening.