The Nance, starring Nathan Lane. Credit: Courtesy of Joan Marcus
Producer: Lincoln Center
Douglas Carter Beane’s Tony Award-nominated play “The Nance,” starring Nathan Lane, comes to television on PBS’ “Live from Lincoln Center” on Oct. 10. The play tells the story of Chauncey Miles (Lane), a headline nance (a parody of a gay man) in the twilight of New York burlesque’s era. The drama imagines a homosexual man, living and working in the secretive gay world of 1930s New York, whose antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his offstage life.
“I like to study gay history to know where we came from,” playwright Beane told critics. “There were people writing in the 1920s and ’30s about what we now call gay politics.” His primary reference was George Chauncy’s book, “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940.”
“For a play like this which is challenging for an audience and doesn’t really let you off the hook, to be filmed…it was extraordinary,” Nathan Lane said. It was filmed over three days before live audiences. “I was just knocked out by what the director captured. They did a really splendid job.”
“There is a young generation of queer writers who think we should be angry” about the self-loathing nance past, Beane said. “I look at it as, they’re almost always funny, they’re strong, I know it comes from a place of ridicule somewhat, of humiliation. The minute something is two things at the same time, I’m drawn to it as a writer. The rules of that world somehow affect where we are now.”
The TV project includes careful framing of some nudity; some language was changed. “I changed swear words to Yiddish,” Beane said.
“I was surprised, too, by what the camera caught…the intimacy,” Lane said. “I was very impressed.”
Speaking of the period, Lane said, “it’s unbelievable what went on,” Lane said. The play covers “the political history, the gay history, the show biz history, the twilight of burlesque. Ultimately, it’s this sad love story. I was so moved by it.”
Asked about his Emmy-nominated role on “Modern Family,” Lane said he’s hopeful but doubts “we’ll ever see the spinoff, “A Dash of Pepper.””
