Last week, Live From Lincoln Center presented the recent Broadway production, The Nance by Douglas Carter Beane. The play, which ran for a limited engagement of four months in New York, starred Nathan Lane as a burlesque performer in 1937. His character is gay and plays outrageously gay and campy on stage, a job description that leads to bouts of persecution and self-loathing.
Here's the entire show, which runs two hours and fifteen minutes. Critics were pretty much unanimous in praising Lane for a stellar performance and singling out his frequent co-star, Lewis J. Stadlen, for playing his "straight" man. They also liked how director Jack O'Brien and the play's designers re-created the burlesque era and staged the musical numbers. They were more divided about the play itself, a few feeling that it said everything it had to say in the first hour or so. I'm afraid I agree with the few, though I found the show well worth watching. If you'd like to, click below…
