'Haines,' Her Way

Anita Gates gives a lukewarm review to Suzanne Brockmann's new Broadway play, "Looking for Billy Haines," about "a dashing gay 1920s movie star who is run out of the business when he refuses to pose as straight by marrying some starlet and giving up the man he loves" and also about "a young aspiring actor auditioning for a part in a movie telling Haines’s story and fretting over his closeted boyfriend."

Gates says first-rate productions like “Next Fall” and serious, admirable ones like “The Temperamentals” mean audiences aren't exactly desperate for an evening of theater that represents and celebrates a gay male world. But in light of recent news about Ricky Martin and Matthew Bomer, plus the ongoing struggle to repeat "don't ask, don't tell," the play sounds as timely and compelling as ever.

Anyone seen it?