Stream: The Nance
Written by Douglas Carter Beane ‘The Nance’ is a play about the lives of Burlesque performers during the 1930’s. A ‘Nance’ was a camp stock character in vaudeville. This production, premiered at the Lincoln Centre in 2013, and transferred to Broadway, received five Tony Award nominations and won the Best Leading Actor award for Nathan Lane.
In these difficult times I understand that it was sadly removed at the last minute from ‘The Shows Must Go On’ series, which is even more a reason to watch it.
It is a bittersweet piece which someone of my age and from show business empathises with. Chauncy Miles (played Nathan Lane) is part of a burlesque show where he performs sketches as an outrageous gay character in between the girls’ striptease. They are a close-knit troupe and the play veers between on-stage, back-stage and Chauncey’s small apartment. Chauncey frequents a known automat where he picks up a young out-of-town boy, Ned, and gradually a relationship develops. This fractures as Chauncy is unable to give up playing the trade game whilst Ned wants to settle down. This is a time where gays were persecuted, and burlesque theatres closed. Chauncey, a devoted Republican, does not believe it will happen and ends up in court defending himself, his lifestyle and relationship. Sadly, he goes to prison, rejects Ned, and ends up giving up his Nancy roles and converting to playing a tattered drag queen.
With a central moving performance by the master Nathan Lane the audience is treated to an almost perfect piece of theatre. The revolving set seamlessly converts to different locations and Lane performs alternately comedy and tragedy, making you laugh and cry at every turn. This is what theatre should be about. As Lane sang in Sondheim’s ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum‘, - ‘Something for everyone, a comedy tonight!’
Would it be such a success in America 2020? Who knows, but for sure, this is a terrific piece of theatre. The cast are superb and of course Nathan Lane’s turn is the centre of the show. I loved it.
