Relationship Spotlight: Larry & Hank (The Boys in the Band)

In our Book of Rannells chronology, we’re back at The Boys in the Band – the adaptation, not the play. I can be completely sincere when I say that Hank and Larry’s story is my favorite part of both version, and I think that would probably be true with or without Andrew Rannells playing Larry (although it obviously didn’t hurt!)  Seeing the show, and later revisiting it through the film, these characters and their relationship drew me in immediately, and I was eager to know where the night would take them (Larry/Hank-related spoilers.)

Hank and Larry don’t really need the assorted dark turns the party takes to bring them to the brink, as they’re already teetering when they arrive.  They’re the only couple in the group, but it’s far from smooth sailing – they both show up to the party on slight edge with each other due to the argument they’re having, and every further agitation just sets them off more.  The major sticking point between them is Hank’s expectation of monogamy and Larry’s insistence that that doesn’t work for him.  Their fight is simmering under the surface but starts to rise almost immediately, when it’s clear that Larry and Donald know each other but won’t say how.

The implication is obvious to everyone involved:  that Donald is another “Charlie,” one of the many guys Larry sleeps with besides Hank.  It’s easy to see Hank’s point of view.  After all, he’s left his wife to be Larry, uprooted everything he’d known, and it has to feel precarious to know Larry strays.  If Larry leaves, what will Hank have left?  Even the assembled group of friends seems to be more Larry’s than Hank’s – Hank is betting everything on this guy, but Larry doesn’t seem to be playing for keeps.

And goodness knows Larry doesn’t do much to assuage Hank’s fears.  At the slightest provocation, he cozies up to Donald or one of the other guys, making sure Hank sees, and he seems to talk flippantly about his assorted hookups.  If Hank is in need of reassurance, Larry’s not prepared to give it to him.

However.  It might feel simple to cast Larry as the unfaithful one, the immature boytoy, the bratty slut, and there are certainly times during the night when he plays all those parts with relish.  But a portion of that is bluster, a dysfunctional release of Larry’s own insecurities.  He chafes at how easily Hank goes back to masquerading as straight (if only largely by omission) when Alan shows up, and I can imagine him wondering how sure his own position is.  If Hank was a family man with a wife once, couldn’t he someday be one again, dropping Larry as a passing “phase” he was going through?

And not for nothing, as much as Larry plays at being cavalier, indifferent to Hank’s affections, he snaps to attention the second Alan gloms onto Hank as the most stereotypically-masculine guy in the room.  I’m not sure if he’s more worried that Alan will bring Hank back into his “straight” fold or if Hank will bring Alan into their queer one – I’m not even sure if he knows which he’s more worried about.  But for a man who makes no bones about his unfaithfulness, he’s instantly jealous.

More than anything, these are two guys who love each other but are both afraid to admit it until the other does first.  When they finally get that mutual declaration from each other (even if they’ve put a pin in the question of monogamy for the time being,) that’s when the tensions ease and they’re allowed to just be.  But it takes them a long time to get there, most of the night.  Because, when these two are insecure, they react at cross purposes.  Larry acts out, presenting himself as the slut Hank seems to imply he is.  When you really get down to it, Larry doesn’t want to hurt Hank – while he doesn’t want to be exclusive, he’d want to be discreet, not sneaking around but not shoving it in Hank’s face, either – but when he feels accused, Larry leans into the role he’s been cast in, petty, trying to get a rise out of Hank.  When Hank’s response is stiff, keeping Larry at arms length as he tries to explain the logic and sense of his proposed “compromise” (a threeway,) Larry just lashes out more.

It occurs to me that they bear a slight resemblance to Christopher and Sylvia in Parade’s End.  Christopher thinks the way to love Sylvia is to stay rational and skirt around her bad behavior, while she causes scenes because she thinks the way to be assured of his love is to see him get angry at her antics.  Fortunately for Larry and Hank, their relationship isn’t nearly as doomed as Christopher and Sylvia’s.  They both spend a lot of time getting in their own way, but they’re also capable of finally dropping the bullshit, of being open and honest with one another about how they feel.  As I said, that’s the moment that cuts through all the bickering and games, when they both call each other during Affairs of the Heart.

Does it fix everything?  No, I wouldn’t say that.  The issue of fidelity is still a big one, and while it helps that Larry finally explains his thoughts on the subject in a way that isn’t dismissive of Hank’s feelings, Hank doesn’t say that sort of arrangement will work for him.  He says he’ll try.  Who knows?  Maybe they’ll break up in three weeks, maybe they’ll still be together in ten years.  Maybe Larry will eventually decide he only wants Hank, maybe they’ll continue in their committed but open relationship, or maybe Hank will decide he’s done with sharing.  It might work, it might not.  But in talking about it instead of fighting about it, they’ve opened the door to make an attempt, and I’d like to hope that they figure it out.

Favorite Characters: Larry (The Boys in the Band)

 

More Boys in the Band! My Book of Rannells posts have taken me around to the Broadway revival production’s point in Andrew Rannells’s career, so I’m revisiting the stage show today.  Even though Larry is a supporting role and he can definitely get lost in the shuffle at times with what’s going on onstage, he’s a great character, and I love what Rannells does with him (Larry-related spoilers.)

A pop artist, Larry has taken up with Hank, a schoolteacher who’s a little older and has heretofore been living a “straight” life with a wife and kids.  Since then, Hank pulled a Marvin in Falsettos and, while still in the process of divorcing, moved in with Larry.  This makes them the only couple in the show, an interesting distinction when Larry, more than any other character, is noted for his casual hook-ups.

Obviously, this is a sticking point between the two, and Hank makes numerous, pointed remarks about Larry sleeping around, cheating on him, and so forth.  Larry makes no bones about the fact that he sleeps with lots of guys and doesn’t plan to stop, and as Hank continues to needle him about it, Larry all but weaponizes that part of himself, making a show of cozying up to Donald in front of Hank.  As Larry later explains, he doesn’t ultimately want to rub his “sluttiness” in Hank’s face.  What he wants is to keep being Hank’s boyfriend, to keep living with him, even to love him, but he also wants to continue hooking up with other guys on the side:  discreetly, not sneaking around but not parading it in front of Hank’s face like he’s done tonight.  But, since Larry needs a long night of passive-aggressive remarks on both sides and a big push before he can come out and say all that, he parades.  He shows off how much he’s enjoying himself, and if he wants to dance or cuddle and Hank rebuffs him, he goes straight to another party guest.

Part of this, clearly, is to be mean, to be spiteful.  Larry is frustrated with Hank’s accusations and insinuations about him, as well as Hank’s attempts to “fix” things by pushing for the “compromise” of a three-way that neither actually wants (as Larry states, “I’m old-fashioned – I like ‘em all, but I like ‘em one at a time.”)  He resents Hank trying to “manage” him, and so he acts out.  Because, like all of the characters in the show, Larry can be juvenile in the way he lashes out at others, even – or perhaps especially – those he cares about.

There’s more fueling Larry’s pointed flirtations, though.  Part of it is his reaction to how Hank deals with his insecurities, but another part stems from Larry’s own insecurities.  Despite the cavalier attitude he projects most of the night, it’s clear that he wants to be assured of Hank’s feelings for him, just as Hank wants from him.  It bothers Larry that Hank can fall so easily into “playing straight” for Alan’s sake, just as it worries him (not that he’ll admit it) to see Alan’s attentions to Hank.

In general, Hank is the more emotionally-mature one in the relationship, although he’s not above a little game-playing as well.  But Larry spends a good part of the night playing emotional chicken with his boyfriend, making like he doesn’t care when he absolutely does, a fact that comes out involuntarily every time he feels threatened about his place in Hank’s life:  making little digs about Alan, demanding to know who Hank is calling in the Affairs of the Heart “game.”  When Larry realizes what’s really going on – that Hank is calling him, that he’s the one Hank loves most – it hits him like a freight train.

That’s when Larry can finally drop the pretenses and the sniping, and he can say what he wants.  You can buy it or not as a valid way to move forward with a relationship – I’m sure some will argue that Larry just wants to have his cake and eat it too, at Hank’s expense – but for me, I don’t doubt that Larry feels the truth of what he’s saying.  Maybe he’s polyamorous, maybe he’s just not into monogamy, but when he lays it out, I get that, to him, having sex with other guys is a separate thing that he doesn’t feel diminishes what he has with Hank, that he doesn’t want to hurt Hank but doesn’t think he has what it takes to be in a relationship without it.

It was such a pleasure to watch Rannells as this character.  In his hands, Larry is often breezy and fun-loving (sometimes genuinely, sometimes feignedly to stick it to Hank,) and he exudes energy and life onstage.  Just as often, though, Larry is mean and passive-aggressive, and Rannells allows it to be as bad as it is while still showing the hints of where it’s coming from.  And, at last, Larry is open and honest, not apologizing for who he is but not trying to rankle Hank anymore.  In the midst of a “game” that’s all about exposing and exploiting people’s emotional vulnerabilities, Larry (as well as Hank) puts it on the line and, in laying himself bare, ultimately plays for keeps.

The Book of Rannells: The Boys in the Band (2020)

It’s here! Actually, it came out on Netflix last Wednesday, but I didn’t have a chance to watch it until over the weekend, so I saved it for this week’s Book of Rannells post. Really glad that this movie was put together, and it brought my memories of seeing this cast onstage flooding back.

Written more than 50 years ago, The Boys in the Band gives us a window into a single night with a group of gay men in a New York City apartment in 1968.  Host Michael has assembled the usual suspects to celebrate the birthday of his friend Harold, but the party shows signs of going off the rails even before the unexpected arrival of the uninitiated Alan, Michael’s old college roommate who doesn’t know about the life Michael leads.  As the night wears on, quips become barbs, discomfort becomes hostility, and Michael becomes his own worst enemy, urging his friends into a shockingly ill-conceived party game that puts all their emotional vulnerabilities on display.

Even though I know the original off-Broadway cast of the show also starred in their own film version (which I haven’t seen, by the way,) I was a little unsure how this would come off in a movie, and on the whole, I think it succeeds. It’s a story that would be very easy to have feel like a play instead of a movie, and as I’ve said before, what works well onstage doesn’t always work well onscreen. Luckily, Broadway director Joe Mantello adjusts nices for the different medium. The script offers a few small expansions, adding opening and closing sequences of the assorted guests both before and after the party, and the iconic Affairs of the Heart game features some snippets of flashbacks to add a bit more action amid the long monologues. And even just in the depiction of the party, there’s just enough movement between different locations in the apartment to give a sense of flow. It makes the whole thing feel more cinematic without sacrificing the almost claustrophobic feel of all the characters being trapped at the party together.

And putting these stage performance in the context of a movie adds an interesting energy to the film. Even when a character isn't in focus (or onscreen, for that matter,) it's like I can still feel them acting, contributing to the energy of the room. It comes through for me in a lot of little moments, and I think the film is more textured for it.

As I did in my review of the Broadway production, I’ll spend most of my time looking at the actors. It might seem counterproductive, since this is the exact same cast as the revival, but again, film is a different medium, and that has bearing on the performances.

Unfortunately, Zachary Quinto’s Harold is still kind of the odd one out for me. I usually like him as an actor, but this role feels too conspicuously "performed." Like I said in my review of the show, I get that part of Harold's whole deal is the artifice of his carefully-crafted presentation of himself to the world, but it feels less to me like something the character is doing and more like Quinto, to borrow from Emory borrowing from Norma Desmond, going "Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." By contrast, with Robin de Jesús as Emory, I can buy the mix of him being naturally feminine and also leaning into it deliberately as a persona, whether to scandalize "the straight" or preempt those giving him crap about his mannerisms. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure how de Jesús’s performance would translate to the screen, and a lot of it is definitely broad, but it’s broad in a way that works. Because it’s Emory being loud and broad, putting on a show for his friends, and in his telephone scene, we see some of that get stripped away and de Jesús takes it down accordingly.

Not a whole lot to say about Brian Hutchinson as Alan, just that he’s effective in the role. Charlie Carver remains fun as the Cowboy, and I like seeing some of the little bits of onscreen business that add to his goober/himbo vibe. Maybe some of these were in the stage show, but when nearly everyone is onstage the whole time, there’s plenty to draw your eye and you don’t always catch what everyone’s doing. I think Matt Bomer’s Donald is also helped by the film medium. Onstage, I thought he got kind of lost in the shuffle during the second half, but having reaction shots and things keeps him from fading into the background, so he remains a little more present.

I actually think Jim Parsons comes across a little better here as Michael –while I thought he was good in the show, there were moments where I could feel the acting a little more. Here, though, I feel like he inhabits the character better. He still feels a little too actory in the really big moments, but for the most part, his performance here is subtler and feels more lived-in. He plays especially well off of both Bomer and Hutchinson, and he handles Michael’s gradual descent over the course of the evening well. It’s a treat to see Michael Benjamin Washington as Bernard again. This is a really understated but effective performance, and it translates well to film – his telephone scene is masterful. I still like Tuc Watkins’s Hank, although he doesn’t leave quite as much of an impression on me here as he did in the show. That surprises me, because he has far more experience in front of the camera than onstage, but he only really pops for me when he’s centered in the action. When he is, though, he’s good – as with de Jesús and Washington, he does really well with his telephone scene, and I just like the different way he relates to the other guys at the party.

And then there’s Andrew Rannells. I maintain that he makes a great Larry, both onstage and onscreen, and both with their advantages for me. I’ll probably always remember the show for being the first time I got to see him perform live (hopefully not the last!), and he had an infectious stage presence that pulled me right in. But here, I love being able to see the close-ups, little moments of business that I missed onstage and his fantastic emotional performance during his telephone scene.

Obviously, Rannells plays wonderfully off of Watkins, but he sparks wherever you put him. Even in minor interactions without much dialogue, the chemistry is there. And funny? Oh, man. Rannells has golden comedic timing as far as I’m concerned, and Larry’s lines made me laugh out loud multiple times. I’m so glad that this performance was preserved, albeit in a different form than the one he gave onstage. My memories of the Broadway production are their own thing, but I’m excited to be able to revisit this whenever I want to.

Recommend?

In General – I think so, as long as you don’t mind that the material is fairly dated and the movie goes to some dark places. It’s rare that I find a film adaptation that I feel really captures the spirit of the show it’s based on, but this one does a fine job.

Andrew Rannells – Absolutely. This is a supporting role, but Rannells makes the most of every moment, and his big scene in the second half is my favorite part of the whole piece.

Warnings

Language (including homophobic and racial slurs,) brief violence, drinking/smoking/drug use, sexual content, and thematic elements.