Revival of a Landmark : Fountain Theatre prepares to take new look at ‘The Boys in the Band,’ the groundbreaking play about gay life first staged 25 years ago

The band has been playing on for a quarter of a century, and “The Boys in the Band” have come a long way.

Or have they?

When Mart Crowley’s landmark play about homosexuals opened off-Broadway on April 14, 1968, it caused more than a stir. And in more ways than one. It was the first play on the subject to become a hit with gay and straight audiences. It was the year of “coming out,” just before the Stonewall riot outside a Greenwich Village bar. The play established a few careers. And it made people think.

This Wednesday, 25 years to the day after its premiere, “The Boys in the Band” opens at Hollywood’s Fountain Theatre, directed by the Fountain’s artistic director, Stephen Sachs. The revival is a momentous moment for Sachs, for the playwright, for the youthful cast taking over the roles, and for the remaining members of the original cast. Four of those original actors and the original director have died of AIDS.

Producer Jane E. Macdonald says, “Once we realized how many actors had passed on--and there was a lot of attention about that--and ‘Angels in America’ had just played at the Taper, we wanted to do something here at the Fountain. For that reason the play spoke up, it shouted out.”

One of the original actors, Frederick Combs, was a close friend of Sachs. He died last year. That was another reason for Sachs to revive “Boys.”

“The timing was, additionally, right,” Sachs says, “to take a look back at the first play that kicked the door down, and made ‘Angels in America’ possible. Without ‘Boys in the Band,’ there would not be an ‘Angels in America.’ It was the production that led the way. It just felt like fate to me. All the pieces were in place.”

None of the pieces were in place in 1968. Mart Crowley was on a string of bad luck as a Hollywood writer. When wealthy friends asked him to housesit while they vacationed, he jumped at the chance, but soon found himself getting bored. An idea had been jumping around in his mind, he recalls, so he began writing what friends would say was nothing more than a writer’s exercise; no one would produce a play about gay men.

But by a chain of those quirky events that always seem normal in theater, the play was produced the following year as a workshop production in New York.

Original cast member Laurence Luckinbill recalls that he and other actors were advised professionally not to do the play because of its subject matter. Luckinbill had a profitable career in commercials going, but wanted theater too, and fell in love with the play. He remembers the lines outside the tiny Greenwich Village theater, where the play opened, and the success when the play moved uptown to 54th Street.

His career, Luckinbill says, “shot to the skies. It brought me public notice for the first time. People thought I was very daring. I lost a commercial almost immediately. The perception was that we were all gay.” That cast, like that at the Fountain, used both gay and straight actors.

Luckinbill appreciated the play’s approach. He says, “It treated homosexuals not as exotic creatures, but as middle-class strivers. They had the same problems, the same hysterias, the same fears, the same braveries, that any group of heterosexual people would have. That was the brilliance of the play. It was not a special pleading.”

That the play was not used as a soapbox made it accessible to a wide audience. Crowley, who says he has never been political, adds: “When any kind of activism is formed initially, it takes a while before people can relax, and accept their own flaws, and their own dirty linen. I don’t think any theater can be held hostage by the need for a politically correct image.”

Crowley is referring in part to gay activists who have said that the play is dated. But, he says, “The play is being reaccepted, so to speak. It went through that patch when political correctness was discovered. Political activists are now inclined to view the play as historical. Instead of putting it down, they say these are our roots.”

Cast member Jeb Stuart comments, “The more we dig into the material, the more we realize how many of the issues are still current. Not just the self-respect issues, but how we take out our own frustrations, our own regrets, on ourselves and each other. There’s an understanding and grace that the AIDS crisis has brought on, which is that people, whether they want to or not, are having to talk to each other about this.”

J. David Krassner has played a number of gay characters in his 20-year career, including the lead in “Torch Song Trilogy” in New York and on tour. He says, “When I wanted to do this play, I too was scared of the stereotype of it. People were saying it’s from another era. Well, that era is part of my heritage, and part of my history. I’m very proud.”

Luckinbill’s words probably come closest to explaining how far America has come and how far it has to go. “There’s a tremendous fear deep inside everybody,” he says, “insecurity about sexuality. Particularly today, when every kind of exception is being made to what we used to think of as normal. Normal male feelings toward women are under tremendous challenge. It’s harassment to look at a pretty butt, you know? My sons are having the same difficulties. We’re polarized. Each one of us is a minority now.”

“The Boys in the Band,” Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends May 9. $25; (213) 663-1525.