She Ain't Heavy, She's My Mother (19 page)

Although I was grateful for the part and well compensated, I was beginning to tire, body and soul. Dancing in eight performances a week was exhausting, and doing the claw-and-paw hand gestures and perfecting my tail-flicking technique were not satisfying my desire to be an actor. I continued with voice and acting classes, but I didn’t want to act in my living room or a studio. I wanted to act on a stage, in a play, again.

After expressing this desire to my new agent, Bill Timms, at the agency I then referred to as IKEA of musical comedy because they signed everyone on Broadway, I soon had an audition scheduled for a new play by Paul Rudnick. I had seen Rudnick’s play
I Hate Hamlet
a couple of years before on Broadway and thought it was hysterical. I was also impressed with the small off-Broadway theatre that was producing the new show. The WPA Theatre under the watch of Kyle Rennick had given audiences
Little Shop of Horrors
and
Steel Magnolias
. Who knew, I thought, maybe this new play,
Jeffrey
, could make it as well.

A copy of the play, with a note saying that I would be auditioning for the role of Darius, was sent to my dressing room at the litter-box theatre. So before I slapped on the kitty-cat makeup, I read a little and laughed. Then, while stretching before the opening, I read a little more and laughed a little more, now out loud. I found myself unable to put the script down during intermission or during my breaks offstage. It was a gay-themed AIDS comedy, and,
strange as that seems, it was funny and brilliant. Just the perfect cutting-edge type of play I wanted to be associated with. I was to audition for the role of Darius, a truly innocent but typical dancer/chorus boy who was appearing in Tommy Tune’s Broadway show
Grand Hotel
. A strapping brunette with severe eyebrows, I thought I was anything but a dancer/chorus boy, typical or atypical. Slight and blond I was not. In retrospect, many times I was cast in roles that for some reason or another I thought I was not properly suited for, and even more I was not cast in roles that I thought myself perfect for. This is a crazy subjective business, so I followed the great words of Phyllis Newman: go to the audition, take the job, and ask questions later.

Despite my ever-present fear of rejection, I went to the call at the casting office of Johnson, Liff, and Zerman. I had prepared the requested scenes, and wore my audition uniform of fitted black jeans, denim shirt, and black boots. For years I would tend to be so focused or nervous at auditions that I sometimes could not recall what I did or how it went, but this one was different. There was no pressure because I had a good job already, and Paul Rudnick and the director, Chris Ashley, made me feel at ease from the start. I thought it went well, and the next day Bill called to say that indeed the audition had gone very well, and that I was to be called back the next week.

Mom was scheduled to visit New York the same dates, for what she called her Bryan fix. She would come up a few times a year, at least once with Aunt Carol and Uncle Jack, who had become second parents to me since my father’s
death. They consistently went above and beyond the call of duty with their kindness, love, and generosity. Family is one thing, but I do believe in the family of choice. By this point Moozie was living with Mom. She had moved in after Dad died, and would stay until she died ten years later. Arrangements had been made for Moozie to stay with Aunt Vilma when Mom was traveling. Throughout this period, Moozie would be in and out of the hospital and at death’s door so many times that we nicknamed her “Boomerang,” because she always came back.

I met them as they were finishing getting settled in their suite at the Regency. Aunt Carol was dressed in head-to-toe polka dots with a huge hat, sporting a vibrant bunch of red cherries. Aunt Carol never held back. She was and is her own wonderful creation, and I adore that about her. Usually we would head directly to La Grenouille for lunch. Mom and Carol admired the breathtaking floral arrangements, and Uncle Jack enjoyed trying his latest Creole-meets-Borscht Belt jokes on the waiters.

But oddly enough, neither the servers nor anyone else in earshot seemed to mind his political incorrectness, maybe because he would laugh so heartily at his own jokes that it became infectious and everyone joined in. But once in a while he would cross the line and I would check my salad for spit. Today Mom had an appointment with Mr. Beau at Saks, so La Grenouille and Uncle Don Rickles would have to wait until tomorrow.

Upon arriving at Saks, Mom suggested that we have a quick snack at Café SFA, as we were a little early for her appointment. As we waited in line for a table, I asked
Mom to hear my lines for my upcoming callback. She had done this many times in the past, and it was fun to watch her “act.” I had forgotten about the nature of the play completely as I became more comfortable with my life. Tom had moved in, but was still a “roommate” to my family, and by this point all of my friends in New York knew, and some in New Orleans; I never really had to tell them, they just got it, knew it, and accepted me for it. Only my mother and brother didn’t officially realize what was in plain view.

Nonetheless, I handed her the pages, showed her where to start, and we were off. At first I don’t think she really understood what was going on in the scene, but when I delivered something along these lines (which would later be cut), “Jeffrey, I may be HIV-positive, but I am still going to be gay, I am still going to wear my leather jacket and go dancing at the Roxy,” Mom didn’t flinch. She simply smiled, lowered her great tortoiseshell frames that I had picked out for her on her last visit, and said ever so softly, “Sweetheart, that was wonderful. You certainly know those lines well, and your acting was lovely, but honeydew, let’s keep it down. We are in Saks.”

At that moment I knew that if I landed this role, I would have to come out to her. Now I prayed to be cast, and to be cast free.

The next day we scheduled shopping and lunch around my callback, which was held at the WPA Theatre on West 23rd Street between Tenth and Eleventh avenues. My name was called, and I read the scenes to the pleasant
laughter of the tiny casting audience. When I was finished, Paul Rudnick asked, laughing his inimitable laugh, “Bryan, are you
really
in
Cats?”

I smiled, striking an iconic Gillian Lynn—choreographed cat pose, answering, “Yup, now and forever.”

This cracked the room up, as the often-mocked advertising line for the show was “Cats: Now and Forever!” I did get the role, but then Paul rewrote my part to actually be a chorus boy from
Cats
, so there would be no escaping unitard and leg warmers for at least another year.
Jeffrey
opened to rave reviews and played a limited engagement at the WPA, then transferred to the Minetta Lane Theatre in the West Village for an open-ended commercial run. Mom and her entourage came north to see the critically acclaimed show, and even though I had warned her about the language and subject matter, I wasn’t sure how she’d react.

She was dealing with several painful and stressful issues at the time, including selling our family home that Dad had designed and built, moving to a town house that I did not like or approve of, and dealing with Moozie’s ongoing medical issues. But I had to tell her, as I had vowed in Saks. I had to bite the bullet and just do it. So, the night after she saw the show, we came back to my apartment. Tom had gone out, and after a bottle of wine, when I could no longer avoid her questions or her eyes, I told her.

It wasn’t horrible; it wasn’t easy. I still wonder how she didn’t already know, like everyone else. I mean, I had picked out her clothes, shoes, handbags, and jewelry since
sixth grade. I hadn’t had a girlfriend for years. And I lived with a very handsome man in a
one-bedroom apartment! Remember Liza! Get a calculator and figure it out!

Although there were some tears, she assured me that we all would be fine, that she loved me, I was her son, she loved Tom, and together we all would have understanding, and love. Surprisingly, when I told my “good ole boy” brother, who I feared telling the most, it was a breeze. He said disarmingly, “You’re gay? Thank God, I thought you just weren’t getting any!”

My fears had been a waste of time. Nothing had really changed between me and my mother and brother, but finally the truth had been told.

But I know it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Mom. She made a very important phone call as soon as she set a Ferragamo-clad heel back in the Big Easy. I can hear her now …

“Oh, Dr. Sugar, this is Gayle Batt calling … Remember? Bryan’s mother? Yes, he’s fine … yes, he’s in his second Broadway show and loving it … well, the
Times Picayune
is very sweet. Well, I’m … I’m … Dr. Sugar, I really need to speak with you …”

T
HE FIRST SYNAGOGUE
I entered was Temple Beth Israel Touro on Saint Charles Avenue, just a hop, skip, and jump down the block from Moozie’s home. It was seventh grade and I was there to witness my new classmate’s call to the Torah. Nathaniel Kaplan was a round, squat transfer student from Uruguay whose rare pituitary disorder had unfortunately caused him to resemble Hervé Villechaize of
Fantasy Island
television fame. Some of the cooler and crueler Newman School upperclassmen would shout, “The plane, boss, the plane!” whenever he was in earshot.

Having endured the brunt of their occasional slurs upon my masculinity—or lack thereof—I felt compassion for this heavily accented, lisping South American imp, and for a short while we actually became friends. That is, until, in a heated discussion, he accused me and my comrade Leann of not being good Jews. Mistake. I replied, “That would be correct on only one count, Nate,
since I’m not a Jew. I’m a Protestant. But Leann is a Jew and a damn good one at that!”

Leo, as she was recently nicknamed, explained that Nathaniel was Orthodox and she was Reformed, and there was a big difference. I didn’t know there were different kinds of Jews, nor did it matter to me. I had Jewish friends whose families actually put up Christmas trees, and didn’t even bother to call them “Hanukkah bushes.” I loved the rare exotic foods Leo’s mother, Miss Lillian, served. She was known citywide for her pickled herring, chopped liver, and latkes, all with a spicy Southern Creole twist, naturally. Such ethnic cuisine was only available to me from Miss Lillian’s fabulous kitchen. None of it, not even a bagel, much less lox, would ever have been served at my home.

Despite this minor altercation, Leo and I and the rest of our middle-school class were invited to Nathaniel’s bar mitzvah celebration. Although some of the more narrow-minded parents did not allow their Gentile young to attend, I happily went with a sense of pride and adventure at the possible opportunity to say
mazel tov
.

Recently confirmed myself, I had not the slightest desire to invite anyone from my crisp Izod-clad uptown school to my polyester blue-collar Irish channel church, not even Leann. At that time, and, I believe, still today, there is a great chasm in New Orleans society dictated by what you wear, where you live, how you speak, and, most important, where you go to school, and I don’t mean college. And, even though I felt a lagniappe-sized portion of guilt, I decided it was best not to mix school and state,
as it were. I was just now coming to terms with all kinds of prejudice, racial, religious, and socioeconomic. It was everywhere, and I was a naïve and sheltered kid who believed what he was taught in Sunday school.

There was no such guilt or narrow-mindedness in my classmates by the time of my second visit to a synagogue, Temple Sinai, also on Saint Charles Avenue, twenty years later. And this time I wasn’t just a spectator at the festivities; I would be a groomsman and usher to Miss Lillian at Leann’s wedding.

At my mother’s new town house in Old Metairie, a suburb nestled in the the crescent city of New Orleans, I had showered and shaved hastily, donned my white dinner jacket and tux, and raced to the temple for pre-wedding photos. Tom remained at home and would escort Mom to the nuptials later that evening.