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Pride

by Myles Weber
review in SF Bay Times by Gene Price

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Pride
The sin of pride got Lucifer kicked out of heaven and young Washington, D.C. playwright Myles Weber pursues this destructive personality trait in his first produced play, Pride, in Kaliyuga Arts' production. John Sowle directs. Billed as a comedy, this penetrating drama of an unattached gay man desperately approaching middle age is certainly more poignant than funny. Structured in three scenes over a period of several months, the drama turns on the failed relationships of Neil (Steven Patterson), a State Department employee who considers himself intellectually superior to his acquaintances and who compulsively sabotages overtures of friendship and commitment. Aggressively defensive Neil makes such remarks as "I'm not self-loathing, it's all those other faggots I can't stand." He also hates his job.

In Scene One, Neil is waiting in his new lover's apartment (they've only recently exchanged keys) for Doug's (Jett Pihakis) arrival. Some fine, edgy dialogue reveals the tentativeness of their affair. Self-confident to the point of indifference to others, Doug makes it clear that Neil is crowding him, and they split.

Several months later, Neil has taken refuge in a friend's study during a Gay Pride Parade party. He is interrupted by Brady (Michael McAllister), a young man whose lover is holding court downstairs. In the play's best scene, patronizing Neil interrogates the ingratiating but ill-at-ease Brady and in a surprise move finds himself the object of the young man's affection. After a kiss and a quick romp on the sofa, Neil reveals that he's aware Brady is Doug's new lover, and the stunned kid departs.

In the third and less polished scene, Neil is preparing pasta for a potential boyfriend. Mid-30s Spaniard Alberto (Erik Kever Ryle), a gay university professor, discovers that the two have interests in common, but is increasingly distracted when Neil engages in an overlong phone call to the mother of a boy who has drowned abroad. When a paranoid Doug and an embarrassed Brady arrive unannounced to accuse Neil of using his key to Doug's apartment to steal an expensive Rolex, the disconcerted Alberto departs.

Well written and featuring well acted offbeat characterizations, Pride nonetheless fails to provide Neil with any sense of self-discovery. The final scene finds him still a victim of his own anger and self-pity.

Pride continues through July 3 at the Exit Theatre. Call 431-8423.

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