The Play
Torch Song Trilogy was originally conceived and performed as three separate one-act plays: The International Stud (pr. 1976), Fugue in a Nursery (pr. 1979), and Widows and Children First! (pr. 1979). As the completed three-act, four-hour, Tony Award-winning play Torch Song Trilogy, each act retains its original title.
“The International Stud” opens to the soulful strains of a torch song, sung by Lady Blues. The stage is divided into five sections, each characterized by a minimal number of props: Lady Blues’s dais with its grand piano, Arnold’s dressing room with its vanity table, Arnold’s apartment with its comfortable chair, Ed’s apartment with its uncomfortable chair, and the International Stud platform, a bare but successful evocation of a typical gay back-room bar.
In Scene 1, the audience is introduced to Arnold, a witty Jewish drag queen who, while primping at his vanity, delivers a long, poignant, self-deprecatory, and self-revealing soliloquy, in which he conveys his surprisingly conventional views on men, love, and relationships.
Scene 2 is played in the front room of the International Stud, a New York bar where Arnold meets Ed. Both men decide to forgo the immediate gratifications available in the back room and instead retire to Arnold’s apartment, where Lady Blues’s third song accentuates the tentativeness of their first sexual encounter.
Scene 3 finds an anxious and rejected Arnold waiting for a telephone call from the less-than-attentive Ed. In the call that follows, initiated by Arnold, Ed’s bisexuality is revealed, and the inevitable conflict between Arnold’s flamboyant homosexuality and Ed’s confused bisexuality results in an estrangement between the two men.
Scene 4 finds Arnold back at the International Stud with his friend Murray, who cajoles him into the back room despite Arnold’s protestations that he is old-fashioned, likes his sex in a bed, and does not “see sex as a spectator sport.” What follows is a very bawdy, humorous scene in which Arnold, alone onstage, pantomimes sex with an unseen partner, who is apparently disturbed by his ingenuous attempt to humanize the act through conversation and a mid-coital cigarette.
In scene 5, Ed returns five months later to Arnold’s dressing room in a state of confused affection. As much as Arnold would like to remain aloof, his love for Ed and his innate optimism make him vulnerable to Ed’s distressed call for help. At the end of this act, the future of the two men is left ambiguous.
The second act, “Fugue in a Nursery,” takes place one year later. Where act 1 is an exploration of the vicissitudes of single life, act 2 is more concerned with the dynamics of relationships. Rather than traditional scenes, the action of this section of the play is divided into the musical entities of a fugue. Ed and his fiancee Laurel have asked Arnold and his new lover Alan to spend the weekend with them in Ed’s farmhouse in upstate New York. What follows is an Oscar Wildean comedy of manners, in which the two couples attempt to be extremely civilized but end up having a series of arch conversations, most of which are orchestrated in a huge bed—a giant, adult nursery. At the close of this act, a brief sexual encounter between Ed and Alan brings Alan and Arnold closer together and stampedes Ed into an ill-fated marriage with Laurel.
Act 3, “Widows and Children First!,” takes place five years after “Fugue in a Nursery” and widens the perspective of the play to include the issues of family. In the interim between acts, Arnold has lost Alan in a tragic incident: He was beaten to death by a...
(This entire section contains 907 words.)
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group of homophobic young men.
After the austerity of the stage in the prior acts, the audience is surprised to be confronted in scene 1 by a stage that is realistically decorated, in the fussy late 1950’s kitsch of situation comedies. Fannie Brice is singing “I’m Cooking Breakfast for the One I Love,” as the lights come up on Ed, who, recently estranged from his wife, is cooking breakfast for Arnold and David. David is a young boy, previously thought to be incorrigible, who has, in six months of Arnold’s foster care, become a nearly typical teenager. The household is in a state of considerable anxiety as the three men await the arrival of Arnold’s mother, Mrs. Beckoff, who has not been told of Arnold’s plans to adopt David. Mrs. Beckoff is feisty, witty, and strong—the prototype for the more domestic Arnold of the third act.
Scene 2 is an extended and explosive argument between Arnold and his mother, in which both sides fire powerful shots about Arnold’s gay life-style and his desire to adopt David. Nowhere in the play is the complexity of character clearer than in this go-for-the-jugular, because-I-love-you free-for-all between mother and son.
Scene 3 includes intimate conversations between Ed and David, and David and Arnold, in which clearly tender emotions are incompletely disguised under a veneer of sarcastic language. Scene 4 provides an uneasy resolution for each of the major conflicts in the play: Arnold and Mrs. Beckoff find common ground over the issue of their mutual widowhood; David acts as a loving ombudsman between Arnold and Ed; and Ed comes to terms with his sexuality. Arnold and Ed commit themselves, as best they can, to a life resembling, but not mimicking, the traditional “heterosexual” way of life whose values Arnold has held, however tenuously, throughout the entire play.
Dramatic Devices
While Torch Song Trilogy is not a musical in the conventional sense, it is a drama whose connections with the world of music are essential to both the tone and the structure of the play. Torch Song Trilogy is permeated with the atmosphere of the torch song music of the 1920’s and 1930’s. The play opens to the sounds of Lady Blues singing in the manner of Helen Morgan or Ruth Etting and ends with Arnold in his kitchen listening to the Big Maybelle song that David has just dedicated to him on the radio: “I Will Never Turn My Back on You.” What all these songs have in common with one another and with the concerns of the play is their obsession with love. While they focus on the extreme discomfort and pain of love, they nevertheless make that anguish seem desirable, at least in comparison with having no love at all. One of Arnold’s strengths in the play is his ability to love the imperfect human beings around him, rather than waiting helplessly for the International Stud of his fantasies. Through the music, one more unusual point of connection is made between the tortured female lyricists of an earlier era and the contemporary Jewish drag queen whose repertoire includes old standards such as “Cry Me a River” and “Who’s Sorry Now?”
More intriguing perhaps is the importance of musical forms to the structure of the play. The organization of act 2, for example, is reminiscent of the imitative, repetitive, counterpoint format of the late seventeenth century fugue. In a fugue, two or more melodies combine in some not strictly defined way that does, however, make musical sense. A fugue is usually written for two to six instruments or parts. In act 2, “Fugue in a Nursery,” Harvey Fierstein presents a composition of four parts, with Ed, Laurel, Alan, and Arnold acting as separate instruments.
By using slides to signal the various sections of act 2 to the audience (“Subject,” “Codetta,” “Stretto,” “Counter Subject,” and “Coda”), Fierstein highlights the musical underpinnings of his design. The Subject, or theme, of this fugue is love. In the most interesting section, “Stretto,” where one would expect overlapping statements of the subject, Fierstein has created some of the most intriguing dialogue of the entire play: Each character asks and answers overlapping questions, which can only be clarified by the judicious use of lighting to show who is talking to whom. In “Coda,” an independent passage used to summarize the preceding themes and motifs, Fierstein leaves the audience with a bantering, but sincere, declaration of love.
In Torch Song Trilogy, music is a great palliative, remembrancer, and spur to action. It is also a wonderful exemplar of the form, the meaning, and the order in Fierstein’s universe.
Places Discussed
*International Stud Bar
*International Stud Bar. Gay men’s hangout in New York City’s Greenwich Village that contained the most notorious backroom bar of its time. Opened in 1969, it consisted of two rooms, one with a regular bar setup and the other a venue for casual sexual encounters. In Harvey Fierstein’s play, it is depicted onstage as a series of platforms with as little scenery as possible. The sparse sets force the audience to focus on the characters and not their surroundings.
Apartments
Apartments. Both Arnold’s apartment and Ed’s apartment are merely platforms on stage; each is furnished with only one chair, one table, and one telephone. The chairs themselves are descriptive of their owners: Arnold’s is worn and comfortable, hinting at both his experience and his comfort with his sexuality, while Ed’s is new and straight, a reference to his prudish and closeted attitude toward his bisexuality.
Vacation house
Vacation house. Farmhouse in upstate New York where Ed and Laurel invite Arnold and his new lover, Alan, to spend the weekend. The set consists of an eight-by-nine-foot bed, heaped with all the props needed in the course of the play. The bed serves as all the rooms in the house. Although both couples are in the bed at the same time, they are illuminated separately so they never appear to be in bed together. The intent is to show the vulnerability of the characters without being offensive. The conversations are orchestrated in the same manner as the musical style of a fugue, and different colored lights are used to indicate the pairings when the conversations become more complex.
Arnold and David’s apartment
Arnold and David’s apartment. Two-bedroom apartment overlooking New York City’s Central Park. The stage directions describe it as “a realistically represented living/dining room and kitchenette.” In scene 3, the sofa doubles as a park bench. The nighttime Central Park setting is produced through the use of lightshields (gobos) and projections. This serves to make the audience aware of the simultaneous events unfolding.
Historical Context
In 1981, when Torch Song Trilogy premiered, the first cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) began to emerge as significant medical news. Upon its discovery, AIDS was quickly identified as a deadly and, at that time, incurable disease. The exact method of transmission was unknown, leading to widespread public fear reminiscent of the panic during the fourteenth-century Black Plague in Europe, which claimed the lives of one-third of the population.
Due to a lack of understanding about how the disease spread, the public concentrated on the early victims, predominantly homosexual men. Homosexuals were unjustly blamed for both causing and spreading the virus, which resulted in increased prejudice against them. Media reports included information about the disease's growth pattern, notably claiming that gay bathhouses, where anonymous sexual encounters occurred, were largely responsible for the virus's spread. Consequently, many people began to stereotype gay men as being fixated on promiscuity and engaging in anonymous sex with multiple partners. This fueled the misconception that stable, monogamous relationships were rare among gay individuals.
In Torch Song Trilogy, one of the social messages that Fierstein conveys is that gay men seek the same committed relationships that heterosexuals do. Through Arnold's dialogues, the audience learns that love transcends the genders of those involved. When Arnold attempts to equate love with anonymous sex and fails, the play underscores the idea that love and sexuality are inherently linked to commitment.
The fear surrounding AIDS further diminished the likelihood of homosexuals being accepted by mainstream America. During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan thwarted efforts to increase government funding for research into AIDS causes and cures. He perceived the disease as a solely gay epidemic and saw no justification for investing substantial resources into research. It took several years for the government to begin funding research, and only after it became evident that heterosexuals were also contracting the disease.
The global media's coverage of AIDS transmission and research funding, often sensationalized, fueled public paranoia that AIDS was easily contracted and inevitably fatal. This fear led to an increase in violence against homosexuals. Another unfortunate consequence of the spread of AIDS was the contamination of the national blood supply by donors unknowingly carrying the virus. As a result, the disease was transmitted to new victims who had not engaged in high-risk behaviors like intravenous drug use or unprotected sex but instead contracted AIDS through routine blood transfusions. Hemophiliacs, who require regular infusions due to their blood's inability to clot properly, were particularly vulnerable. A young hemophiliac named Ryan White contracted AIDS from such a transfusion. His experience with discrimination—being expelled from school solely because of his condition—made him a symbol for efforts to educate the public and humanize the disease.
White was not the only child facing discrimination. Other children who contracted AIDS also became targets of public fear. They were banned from schools, local businesses, and even forbidden from entering friends' homes. Rational individuals turned irrational, fearing contact with anything an infected person might have touched. Parents did not want their children to breathe the same air as children with AIDS, and they sometimes violently petitioned schools to remove infected students. Early in the epidemic, scientists clarified that the virus could only be transmitted through contact with infected blood, and that touching or being in the same airspace as an AIDS victim posed no risk. However, fear and prejudice overshadowed common sense, and people continued to harbor irrational fears of AIDS sufferers well into the 1990s.
The most significant impact of the public's acceptance of Torch Song Trilogy was that Harvey Fierstein was able to highlight to a broad audience the senselessness and harm caused by prejudice—and violence—against gay individuals.
Literary Style
Character
A character is a person depicted in a dramatic piece. The story unfolds through
the actions of each character. The concept of character also encompasses an
individual's moral compass. Characters can range from basic stereotypical
figures to more intricate, multi-dimensional ones. They can be characterized by
distinct personality traits. "Characterization" is the process by which an
author crafts a realistic person from their imagination. The author achieves
this by giving the character specific personality traits that define their
identity and behavior in various situations. For example, at the start of the
play, Arnold expresses to the audience the significance of finding a partner
who will love him unconditionally and commit to a relationship. When he later
encounters Ed and gets hurt, the audience already understands the depth of
Arnold's pain because his need for love has been clearly established.
Coda
A coda serves as a conclusion. It often reaffirms, summarizes, or integrates
the themes of the literary work. In Torch Song Trilogy, Fierstein uses a
coda in the Fugue in a Nursery segment to divide the act.
Drama
A drama is typically defined as any work intended for stage performance. It
includes a narrative, actors portraying characters, and action. Historically,
drama also encompasses tragedy, comedy, religious pageantry, and spectacle. In
contemporary terms, the word drama describes a certain type of play, usually
one that tackles serious subjects and themes but doesn't reach the level of
tragedy.
Fugue
A fugue is most commonly described as a musical piece where different parts
successively echo the theme. This occurs in Act II when each pair of partners
repeats both actions and dialogue in a round, similar to the chorus repetition
in a song.
Plot
Plot refers to the sequence of events that unfold in a play. Typically, plots
have a beginning, middle, and end, but they can also be a series of episodes
with a loose thematic connection, as seen in the epic plays of Bertolt Brecht,
like Mother Courage and Her Children. Essentially, the plot is the
vehicle through which the author explores major themes. Students often confuse
the two terms; however, themes delve into ideas, while plots simply narrate
what happens in a straightforward manner. Therefore, the plot of Torch Song
Trilogy is the tale of Arnold's journey to finding love. Meanwhile, the
themes revolve around loneliness, commitment, and love—what Arnold must endure
and learn before reaching the play's joyful conclusion.
Scene
Scenes serve as sections within an act. A scene may transition when the main
characters either enter or exit the stage. Additionally, a scene change can
signify a shift in time or location. In Torch Song Trilogy, the third
scene of Act I takes place several months later, highlighting the passage of
time within the play.
Setting
The setting encompasses the time, place, and cultural context in which the
play's events unfold. Setting elements can include geographic location,
physical or mental surroundings, dominant cultural perspectives, or the
historical era in which the story occurs. Fierstein's play features diverse
settings, including an apartment, a bar, and a country home, with the narrative
spanning several years.
Stretto
Stretto is a musical term describing the overlap between the subject and the
answer. Fierstein employs a stretto in Fugue in a Nursery to create a
division within the act.
Compare and Contrast
1981: The prime interest rate stands at 21.5%, and President Reagan requests $13 billion in cuts to government spending. Social welfare programs are the primary targets of these reductions.
Today: The prime interest rate is 7.5%, and the federal budget is closer to being balanced than it has been in the past three decades. Despite the economic stability, social programs are still at risk of being eliminated. Many conservative politicians advocate for the complete removal of funding for arts and various social welfare programs.
1981: Cases of AIDS are starting to be reported. Doctors in New York and San Francisco are noticing a growing number of cases of this particularly lethal disease, which compromises the immune system, leaving victims unable to fight off even minor infections. In the coming years, nearly 60% of all cases will result in death.
Today: Individuals with AIDS are living significantly longer due to new medications and an improved understanding of the immune system. Research funding has played a crucial role in managing a disease that, while still incurable, is now more manageable.
1981: The global population reaches 4.5 billion. Female infanticide is on the rise in the People's Republic of China, where parents are restricted in the number of children they can have, and boys are preferred over girls.
Today: Female infanticide remains an issue in China, where male children are still highly valued. However, there is now a stronger effort to place Chinese girls for adoption in Western countries. This initiative benefits single and often gay parents by making child adoption more accessible.
Media Adaptations
Torch Song Trilogy was adapted into a film in 1988. The screenplay was crafted by Fierstein and directed by Paul Bogart. The movie features several actors from the original stage production. Fierstein returns as Arnold, while Matthew Broderick, who initially portrayed David on stage, takes on the role of Alan. Anne Bancroft plays Mrs. Beckoff, and Brian Kerwin appears as Ed. A notable aspect of this adaptation is the inclusion of characters who are merely mentioned in the play but are present in the film.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources
Barnes, Clive. Review of Torch Song Trilogy in the New York
Post, July 15, 1982.
Cahill, Madeleine A. Torch Song Trilogy: The Conception, Realization, and Reception of a Controversial Film (thesis), University of Massachusetts, 1992.
Clarke, Gerald. Review of Torch Song Trilogy in Time, February 22, 1982.
Green, William. ''Torch Song Trilogy: A Gay Comedy with a Dying Fall'' in Maske und Kothurn: Internationale Beitrage zur Theaterwissenschaft, Volume 30, nos. 1-2, 1984, pp. 217-24.
Gross, Gregory D. ''Coming up for Air: Three AIDS Plays'' in Journal of American Culture, Volume 15, no. 2, Summer, 1992, pp. 63-67.
Gussow, Mel. Review of Torch Song Trilogy in the New York Times, November 1, 1981.
Kroll, Jack. Review of Torch Song Trilogy in Newsweek, March 15, 1982.
Nelson, Don. Review of Torch Song Trilogy in the Daily News, November 11, 1981.
Powers, Kim. Review of Torch Song Trilogy in Theatre, Volume 14, no. 2, Spring, 1983, pp. 63-67.
Stasio, Marilyn. Review of Torch Song Trilogy in the New York Post, November 20, 1981.
Further Reading
Brozan, Nadine. ‘‘When a Son or Daughter is a Homosexual’’ in the New York Times, March 12, 1984, p. B11.
In this article, Brozan explores how parents respond upon learning their child is gay.
Dynes, Wayne and Stephen Donaldson, editors. Homosexuality and Homosexuals in the Arts, Garland, 1992.
This book is the fourth entry in the series ''Studies in Homosexuality.'' It presents a range of essays discussing the presence of homosexuality in film, theater, and literature.
Helbing, Terry, editor. Directory of Gay Plays, JH Press, 1980.
This book provides an overview of the increasing production of plays featuring homosexual themes.
Pastore, Judith L., editor. Confronting AIDS through Literature: The Responsibilities of Representation, University of Illinois Press, 1993.
This is a compilation of essays that delve into the portrayal of AIDS in literary works.
Summers, Claude. Gay Fictions: Wilde to Stonewall: Studies in a Male Homosexual Literary Tradition, Continuum, 1990.
This anthology of 20th-century fiction includes works by authors such as Oscar Wilde, Willa Cather, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, among others.
Wilde, Oscar. Novels and Fairy Tales, Cosmopolitan, 1915.
This collection features Wilde's fiction, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Canterville Ghost, and The Sphinx without a Secret. These works are regarded as foundational gay fiction.