Koufax and Take Me Out
 Saturday I saw Richard Greenberg's Take Me Out, now in previews at the beautifully renovated Walter Kerr Theater on W. 48th. The comedy explores the decision by a baseball superstar to announce in mid-season that he is gay. An interesting premise, weakly developed. The play's very serious structural problems include an essentially pointless first act. Some actual dramatic conflict gets going in the second but nothing fully connects with the bat. I scuff the mound at the thought of the better play this could have been.
Take Me Out is already a bit notorious for its faithful representation of locker room nudity. These baseball players take several team showers right on stage, buck nekkid, under real water splashing patrons in the front row, earnestly delivering their lines while vigorously soaping their crotches. I guess director Joe Montello knew the script was weak. And so the stage craze for the full monty continues; I've written about it earlier regarding Peer Gynt and Metamorphoses.
By coincidence, I saw Take Me Out on the same weekend that LA Dodgers Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax, the most dominant pitcher of the 1960s, became embroiled in a gay outing controversy. See this curiously elliptic LA Times story about Koufax's hissy fit regarding a gossip item in the New York Post. Koufax to New York: Drop Dead.
12:02:49 AM 
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