The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions ★★★★★

Like a pink elephant prancing around the Upper East Side, let’s point out the obvious. In case the unignorable title isn’t enough of a clue, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions certainly isn’t for everyone. It’s particularly not for fragile cis hetero men who might feel that they’re being branded the enemy, a constant in this fable where the villains are referred to simply as “the men”. But for everyone else, as well as for secure straight men who can survive not being the belle of the ball for 90 or so minutes, this dazzling, provocative production at the Park Avenue Armory is not to be missed.

Based on Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta’s cult book of the same name, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions has assembled an astonishingly talented and gloriously mismatched cast from around the world, and all for the better, as the diversity of accents only heightens the mythical quality of the parable being performed. Surrounded by an exciting array of instruments – including harpsichord, accordion, and tubular bells – on all sides, the cast ambles about on an otherwise simple set that resembles a large university music rehearsal room where creativity must come from the participants, not their surroundings.

The simplicity of the staging might disappoint those who are expecting something molto fabulosissimo, but creators Philip Venables (music) and Ted Huffman (direction and text) have made a wise choice, one that requires the audience to individually dive fully into their own imaginations while partaking of what is essentially a communal gathering of like-minded spirits. And in case that point is being missed, midway through the show everything stops for a group sing-along led by the invaluable Kit Green, the production’s quasi-narrator, who leads the audience in a rehearsal before the rest of the cast joins in and vocally puts the punters in their place.

The largely baroque/classical music holds no fidelity to time periods; outside influences (techno, bossa nova, and jazz, among others) barge in unexpectedly and most welcomely. The singers are uniformly superb, and hearing their gorgeous operatic voices deliver lyrics that Handel could never have handled is wicked fun. The show’s subversive manifesto arrives early:

Vibrations, passed through the eyes

and through the tips of the fingers,

allow them to detect their own kind

in the smallest details:

A casual look across a street.

The raise of an eyebrow.

The turn of a heel.

The flick of a wrist.

Fortunately, the production wisely avoids a common pitfall to which such highbrow-lowbrow mélanges often succumb. Jerry Springer: The Opera, which has never gotten a New York production that can even touch what was presented in London, came roaring to mind. That blasphemous, hilarious musical has a brilliant score but – with its three acts – stays at the party too long. This show makes no such misstep. The faggots tell their political fable about the costs of otherness and assimilation, then end the show quietly with “the ritual of brutalization”. The departing message is clear: the faggots cannot entirely blame “the men” for their destruction; self-hatred dooms all who partake in an endless chase to which there is no end except death.

The dark, contemplative ending forces all participants – onstage and off – to question the ongoing rituals in which they take part. But there is no question that Park Avenue Armory is ending its calendar year in daring, triumphant fashion. Discriminating theatergoers thirsty for something of substance should consider wrapping up the year with this theatrical bang; these faggots and their friends won’t be around long. They’ve got a revolution ahead.