Loaded

Two guys, involved in an ongoing intergenerational hook-up, face off on gay hot button issues during an apparently rare hour on rather than under the sheets. Given the very real generational chasm in gay urban culture, there should be more interesting material in this premise than the first-time playwright finds: he's more written (half-naked) mouthpieces than people. Worse, he hasn't written a fair fight: everytime the older guy makes a point or two the playwright is quick to put the character in his place by giving him some repellent bit of business. (Sometimes not only repellent but irresponsible: as the character made a display of his prejudice against lesbians, generally depicting them as troublemakers who hindered rather than helped AIDS efforts, I was horrified to realize that an otherwise uninformed person could take this for fact.) The characters are so strategically, unsurprisingly opposed on every talking point that there is no credible reason why they wouldn't stop talking and either end the evening or take it back to bed. The actors (I saw able understudies Rik Walter and Joel T. Bauer) do quite a lot to fix this huge credibility lapse by signaling attraction and by trying for levels, but they've been asked to breathe life into cardboard.