III

III means to romanticize a non-fictional menage a trois, but what we see is two men both in love with the same guy. The only thing that might make the situation interesting (and, frankly, sympathetic for those of us with little patience for martyrs and narcissists) is a palpable sense of the social codes of the time period when it is set (the first half of the last century) but apart from a nod here and there that is exactly what the play lacks. In the first scene, when Monroe Wheeler seeks out the poet Glenway Westcott to tell him that he "gets" what his poems are covertly about and the "men like us" they are written for, there is no sense of shared danger or excitement. The two could be discussing which lattes to get at the corner Starbucks. None of the three actors seems to have brought his crotch into his performance - you don't believe for a second that any two of these men have been in bed together - and without that, there's rarely a believable moment in the play.