‘Jerome’ Poignantly Highlights Schemers and Dreamers in the American West

The American West has proven fertile territory for playwrights in this century, among them Samuel D. Hunter and Jordan Harrison, who both enjoyed long overdue Broadway debuts this past season. Arizona native John J. Caswell, Jr. isn’t quite as well known, yet, but with recent works like “Wet Brain” and “Scene Partners,” he has emerged as one of contemporary theater’s most compelling voices.Mr. Caswell’s characters may not be the kind of people you run into at cosmopolitan cocktail parties, but they are often dreamers and schemers, complicated and sophisticated in their own right and drawn with both sharp wit and abiding compassion. Like Mr. Hunter, Mr. Caswell also grew up gay in a place and time where that orientation wasn’t exactly nurtured, and he has addressed social and spiritual struggles, and hypocrisy, with an acuity surely enhanced by personal experience.Mr. Caswell’s latest effort, “Jerome,” now having its world premiere off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, is titled after the “tourist ghost town,” as the author describes it in a program note, where he spent time during his “closeted youth.” The play unfolds between 1992 and 1994, as the AIDS epidemic was approaching its peak of devastation.We first meet Con and Doane, two army vets in their sixties, at the Northern Arizona Pride Alliance’s 28th annual Halloween ball, where they’re celebrating their own anniversary of as many years. Con, who is identified in the script as Italian-American, is clad in a black bear suit, while Doane, listed as African-American, is resplendent as a drag Nina Simone.As respectively played by Broadway and film veteran Stephen Spinella and Jeorge Bennett Watson, also an accomplished stage and screen actor, Con and Doane enjoy the sort of easy, tender rapport you would expect from any happy couple of their vintage, kidding each other about the health issues that accompany aging — Con’s are more profound, as demonstrated when he nearly faints, for what Doane notes is the second time that week — and their longevity as a duo.“Do you ever wonder if we’ve been doing this whole homosexual thing correctly?” Con suddenly asks his partner. By the time they leave the party, he has convinced a reluctant Doane to approach Bruin, younger by roughly a decade and played here by a ruggedly handsome Ken Barnett. The character listings indicate that Bruin can be portrayed by an actor of any ethnicity, or presumably any race; Mr. Barnett appears to be white.After an initially awkward dinner at the older men’s home, they all become a trio, forming sexual and emotional bonds that will be tested as the two-act play progresses. As is often the case with alluring strangers who wiggle into other, more settled lives, Bruin proves something of an enigma. He mentions that his parents died when he was young, and that he spent time in San Francisco, but doesn’t say much else about his past, even when Con presses him — after he hears Bruin crying in the bathroom, for instance, or notices a growing pattern of long-distance phone calls.What develops, as Bruin grows increasingly sullen and mysterious and Con’s physical well-being continues to decline, is a lovely, funny, moving account of connection and forgiveness, with mortality looming large over the proceedings to underline their urgency. While Con attributes his deterioration to “slow kidneys,” old military injuries, and arrythmia, the specter of AIDS hovers relentlessly, whether a DJ’s voice is heard warning revelers to have safe sex — or, at a later ball, reciting names of victims — or it’s revealed that Bruin’s calls have been to a hospital.“It’s easy to forget…that we still get sick and die of other things,” Bruin says at one point. Under the delicate direction of Dustin Wills, also Mr. Caswell’s collaborator on “Wet Brain,” Mr. Barnett brings both great empathy and the necessary elusiveness to the role, while Messrs. Spinella and Watson sustain a comedic chemistry and camaraderie that make Con and Doane’s unlikely journey at once amusing and poignant.Mr. Wills, also the scenic designer, has crafted a set that accommodates Mr. Caswell’s penchant for sometimes darkly whimsical touches. The first act ends with Bruin sinking below the stage, and Barbara Samuels’s lighting, following the stage directions, provides flickering bulbs on Christmas trees and in lamps, suggesting a haunting of sorts, perhaps by the lost souls referenced by that DJ.The brightly lit final scene plainly evokes heaven, and is described as such by Con and Doane, who appear dressed in white, as does Bruin, eventually. It’s not what you think: “Jerome” rather reminds us that while there is no perfect paradise on earth, joy can be found in loving and accepting people on their own terms. It’s a message that will resonate with anyone lucky enough to have enjoyed a healthy and rewarding long-term relationship, and should inspire everyone else.

‘Jerome’ Poignantly Highlights Schemers and Dreamers in the American West

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