Gregory in Love! Valour! Campassion!
By David E. Anderson
 
I like to go to the movies at cheap second-run houses. I get comfortable in an aisle seat with my coat in the chair next to me, even in 90-degree weather, so I have unlimited elbow and knee room, spread out a large tub of popcorn, medium coke, and box of Milk Duds, stand up three times during the previews to let stragglers in, and get ready to either enjoy the show or curse myself for wasting $4.
 
But the minute a character in the movie begins to stutter, my Ray Walston antennae go up, whirling around and humming, straining to pick up every nuance of the portrayal. Why does he or she stutter? Screenwriters don't assign characters a stutter like they give them blond hair or a limp or a predilection for white tees or vividly colored floral skirts. Usually it's meant to mark the character as different from the others, all too often in a negative sense. And even in portrayals where the character is multifaceted, with even some likable traits, you inevitably can expect him or her, like Derek Jacobi playing Alan Turing, to dip the apple in cyanide at the end - just like the gay characters in many a movie, come to think of it.
 
A few months ago I went to see the movie Love! Valour! Compassion! For those of you who haven't seen it, it's about eight gay men who spend three summer holiday weekends at a country house. Really, it's about four couples: the owner of the house (Gregory), who's a famous dancer-choreographer, and his blind lover (Bobby); an accountant and a lawyer who have been together so long that they're role models; a rather unpleasant Englishman and his current boyfriend, a testosteronely active Hispanic dancer fascinated by the blind lover; and a musical-comedy aficionado with AIDS and a giggle like Judy Holliday's who falls in love with the evil Englishman's good twin brother, who also has AIDS.
 
I had seen the play by Terrence McNally here in Chicago last winter, so I was looking forward to the movie. The first bit of dialogue comes when the evil, or perhaps just misunderstood, twin shows up with his dancer boyfriend and says, talking about Gregory, "Don't um say anything um about the um stutter." Say um what? I thought. What stutter? The actor in the production of the play didn't stutter. Sure enough, Gregory (whom we'd heard in a fluent voice-over at the beginning of the movie describing his gorgeous country house that every dancer can afford) stutters. More precisely, he ums: There are more "ums" than blocks. Gregory says to the dancer, making small talk, "Um. I don't do this. Um. On purpose. Um." (Has anyone ever met a stutterer who blocks on a period?) I ran to buy a copy of the play, and the character is given a stutter. For whatever reason, the production I saw had dropped that and tinkered with a few lines that referred to it.
So, here we have the gay stutterer breakthrough on the silver screen! A noted dancer-choreographer, owns a great house, has a cute, almost saintly, lover and fun friends who'll dance "Swan Lake" in drag - what more can we ask?

But there's a problem. Gregory is "blocked": He's trying to choreograph a new piece, and he can't come up with any ideas.
 
Ah, ha, so here's the rub: Creative block - psychological block - speech block, a rather hoary device in old movies: Rachmaninoff can't compose anymore, goes to a psychiatrist, is told that his Id and his Ego just have to kiss and make up, rushes home and writes the Second Piano Concerto ("Moonlight and Empty Arms," tra la la la, etc.).
 
Oh, OK, so stuttering is a "metaphor." Most people who see the film won't have Susan Sontag to interpret that for them anyway, right? They'll be too busy gaping at Jason Alexander wearing an apron, high heels, floppy hat - and nothing else. Well, except that there's the problem of the saintly blind lover Bobby, who had a midnight encounter of the spilt-milk kind in the kitchen with the dancer over Memorial Day. Bobby is honest, so he tells Gregory on the Fourth of July. And we get fireworks. Gregory doesn't take the news very well: He asks Bobby if he wants to do it again. So he's a dope! You ask your erring lover if he wants to do it again? With a hot Hispanic dancer?! Bobby says he doesn't (he is a saint), but Gregory doesn't believe him. He tells Bobby he doesn't want him in their home. Bobby's just learned his sister was killed in a freak accident, so this isn't the best time to be kicked out. Gregory calms down, and later that evening he reconciles with Bobby. Fine, so he initially took the news hard, like many devoted spouses would, but he realized that he had misjudged his lover, and all was bliss in Eden again.
 
Not quite. Over the Labor Day weekend, Gregory is still not fully convinced of Bobby's innocence. ("You betrayed me!" he snaps. "He doesn't have the bunions you do!" Bobby should snap back.) So Gregory's not over it quite yet. The dancer has come back for a third visit, still trying to tempt Bobby like the, um, serpent in the garden. Gregory has an violent encounter with him, during which he threatens to put the dancer's hand down the garbage disposal unless he confesses. The dancer, understandably upset about the coffee grounds on his fingernails, accuses Gregory of being angry because he knows he's getting older while the dancer is young and attractive.
 
In the play they come to terms, although this subplot is omitted in the film. Gregory has finally been able to work out his new piece - his creative block broken through either by his marital problem or by his own attraction to his lover's seducer; it isn't clear which - and he offers the younger dancer the starring role. So Gregory forgives and, if he doesn't forget, at least he does what he knows is best for his new piece.
At the end of the movie, each character tells what will happen to him. Gregory will outlive his friends and bury them all (no poison apple for this queen). He and Bobby will break up, "because of their ages," Gregory says. Well, that may be wishful thinking on his part. Bobby may be a saint, but not all saints are martyrs.
 
Here's a gay character with many likable qualities but also a jealous, if not violent, side. Or is he just human? The entire movie is a paean to gay monogamy, so a violent reaction by one character to news of his partner's fooling around advances the plot. Other characters in the movie aren't perfect: The lawyer is opinionated if not a little racist, the dancer is immoral, the evil twin hates his good twin and reads his host's diary (I suppose that's wrong...). Only the characters with AIDS and Bobby seem to be practically perfect in every way; their being marked as different has positive associations.

But the stutter marks Gregory as different with negative associations. Even if audiences don't identify the stutter with the psychological and creative block, they can associate an unusual vocal characteristic with unusual violence. McNally's metaphor has negative associations that will probably make an impact, either conscious or subliminal, on many in the audience, who take their reinforced biases out from the world of shadows flickering on a screen to the world of corporeal people who stutter.
 
But I'm not cursing the loss of $4 ($8.50, actually). Although the words a playwright puts in an actor's mouth are important, it takes an actor to give them life and meaning. Gregory could be played as Best Supporting Villain, but Steven Bogardus has done us a great service by his carefully nuanced portrayal of Gregory as a basically nice guy just going through a difficult time, first dealing with getting older, then with trying to maintain his flagging creativity, and finally confronting his feelings about his lover's being attracted to another, younger dancer. Many people will identify with his rage over an adored spouse's infidelity, however misdirected that rage may be. Others may be impressed by the fact that he's supposed to be a famous and successful gay stutterer. And on the most basic level, in a culture where looks are everything, many will come away with a good impression just because Bogardus has artsy good looks and an easy charm.
 
So what's my ideal gay or lesbian character up on the big screen, one that will make friends and acquaintances rush up and exclaim, Oh, they finally understand me now? (Just so I don't have to hug them.) What I really want is Tom Hanks to play us as John Q. Everyman (Q. for queer, of course), Meryl Streep to contribute her genius for speech characterizations (I once um had a house in um Africa), or Arnold Schwarzenegger to portray us as ready to defend democracy once we finish our workout at the gym. Perhaps the movie to turn the tide will be the film biography of Somerset Maugham or "George VI: The Untold Story." But until then, if you hear a friend murmur before they introduce someone to you, "Don't um say anything um about the um stutter," just slap 'em.
 
Copyright 1997 David E. Anderson. All rights reserved.

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