Maybe the problem with A Guide for the Homesick—arriving here after stops at Boston’s Huntington Theater Company and San Francisco’s Rhinoceros Theatre—is mine and there is something genuinely positive to report. Perhaps my befuddlement over Ken Urban’s complicated drama is compounded by technology, requiring consultation with that damnable hyperlink square at the lower left of the one-page credit list the ushers hand out.
It could be that had I taken the trouble to access the actual program I would have been better prepared for what I was about to encounter during the intermissionless two-hander. (Or is it a four-hander?) I might have already understood that McKinley Belcher III was playing not only Teddy, the character he’s enacting when Daniel Kluger’s lights go up on Lawrence Moten III’s Amsterdam hotel room set. I would have known he’d also be Nicholas, who a bit later bursts into the progressive action on the unmodified set.
Had I surfed the program, I could have been ready for Uly Schlesinger to transition—no, no, not as a trans—to Ed from Jeremy. It’s possible I would have been all squared away that while Boston-area-born Jeremy is a privileged Harvard grad disappointing his family with the Uganda decision, Ed may not be anything like that. (BTW, Teddy hails from the Boston area, too.)
But I didn’t know of any of this, which, I wouldn’t be surprised, was true of other audience members who hadn’t made a point of carefully consulting their full program, as so many audience members often don’t.
Okay, so Teddy and Jeremy, the handout did inform me, are at the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. It’s immediately established that Teddy, who’s Black, has invited Jeremy, who’s white, to his room. Jeremy, having missed his Boston flight, has no accommodation. Nonetheless, he’s reluctant to impose himself on Teddy, repeatedly threatening to leave.
As for Teddy, he no sooner closes the hotel-room door than he reveals he’s in Amsterdam to buck up friend Ed, whom he also calls Eddie and who’s due to get married but has disappeared. Agitated over the situation, Teddy increasingly cajoles Jeremy to stick around as a calming influence.
Clear so far? Anyway, almost from their arriving, it’s evident to all but the most show-unsavvy patrons that there’s a gay undercurrent emerging, surging. It’s all but shouted that Teddy, announcing he’s gay, thinks he’s landed a live one in Jeremy. Plus, it’s all but blared that Jeremy, adamantly declaring he’s not gay, will succumb to advances.
As a result, the first third of A Guide for the Homesick is one of those see-through enterprises where ticket buyers must wait patiently—or with mounting impatience—for what they know will happen to happen. Then, they must sit through the aftermath of the consummation, whatever that might be.
Here’s where playwright Urban uncorks the first of his dramatic surprises. Having made the Teddy-Jeremy cat-and-mouse shenanigans sufficiently long, he abruptly ends them, which had me relieved but also puzzled about where he’d go next.
He supplied the answer, an answer or answers that added nothing clarifying for me. Suddenly, the lights brightened and then dimmed, or was it the reverse? At first, I thought something had gone awry with the Kluger lighting. But no. Slowly, it became somewhat plain that the changes indicated Teddy and Jeremy were now Nicholas and Ed or, the lighting changing again, were Teddy and Jeremy or were Nicholas and Jeremy or….
I know, I know. For me—which I think may be my problem (and others in seats around me?), the problem was that their disparate plights did not easily cohere. What troubled them so emphatically? Did Nicholas and Ed share common emotional challenges with Teddy and Jeremy? Is Ed the missing groom? What’s eating at Nicholas to begin with? Did I miss that explanation while attempting to unpack something else afoot? Toward the end, what is the meaning of an upstage door gliding aside to reveal Nicholas (?) in a beatific light? Stumps me.
Apparently, playwright Urban is writing about guilt, failure, and (?) hotels as metaphors for life-changers. Teddy shows signs of believing he’s let down missing friend Ed, but isn’t it Ed who has abandoned not only Teddy but never-seen jilted bride Margo? Jeremy chastises himself for quitting the Uganda mission, which is understandable, but that he went at all might be some consolation for him.
Maybe I’ve missed this boat, but I can’t think that, as A Guide for the Homesick doggedly forges on, Urban doesn’t stock it with far too many additional headscratchers. My contention is he’s trying something that needs simplifying. In the script he uses the words “shift,” “bleed,” and “return” to indicate what the lighting changes mean, but audiences are not following along with scripts.
In fairness, A Guide to the Homesick has been called “a tour de force.” It’s surely a tour de something—a tour de difficulté? Where it does register as a tour de force is in the acting, under Shira Milikowsky’s dynamic direction. Belcher and Schlesinger, changing from one character to another and then instantly back, are like sticks of dynamite igniting. Representing men at profound loss, they both have a grip on that draining emotion. So, here’s to Belcher and Schlesinger for being so effective they two-handedly raise the level of a faltering experiment.
A Guide for the Homesick opened December 12, 2024, at DR2 Theatre and runs through February 2, 2025. Tickets and information: aguideforthehomesick.com
