Life is a Cabaret, Old Chum
Like its emotional inverse Barnaby’s Babes (see Thursday), The Nance captures a real moment in New York theater history when Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia waged a clandestine fight against sexual enlightenment by sweeping burlesque halls as a provision for the 1939 World’s Fair. Our tragic protagonist Chauncey Miles is a middle-aged star on the descent, who’s earned a good living playing hackneyed stage nellies of the limp-wrist, swish-hips, and outrageous double-entendre variety. As burlesque’s final days draw near, Miles becomes the brunt of ever-deepening derision both from without and within, and the genuine embrace of his new lover seems the only chance at redemption for his hammered heart. Sadly, as in Cabaret, where the show-within-the-show offers only temporary relief from the darkening plot, stark sociopolitical events and even starker personal connotations have already been set in motion. P.A. Cooley plays Chauncey Miles, the role made famous by Nathan Lane, in this overdue West Coast premiere.
