The Nance – Play

Full Plot

The play alternates between the scenes of the characters’ real lives, and sketches played at the Irving Place Theater, which serve as comment on the play itself. The play opens at an automat in Greenwich Village in 1937 where gay men congregate and arrange meetings. Chauncey Miles is a star at the Irving Place Theater, a burlesque house in New York City. He specializes in playing the “nance”, a “stock character who was a flamingly effeminate homosexual”. In fact, Chauncey is gay and looks for men at the automat, but he must be careful or risk being arrested. There he meets Ned, newly arrived in New York and homeless. Chauncey invites him to his apartment for a sexual encounter, assuming him to be a curious heterosexual. In the morning, however, Ned confesses that he is also gay and has recently left his wife hoping to find out more about himself. Though Chauncey is hesitant to begin a serious relationship, they become lovers.

At this time, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia is attempting to end burlesque in New York (during this period the gay population was often persecuted). Ephraim, the manager and top comic of the Irving Place Theater, warns Chauncey that the knowledge of his sexuality is attracting gay men to the theater, a fact of which the police may become aware. However, Chauncey, a passionate Republican supporter of La Guardia, believes that the attacks on burlesque and gays will stop after the election. When another of the performers suddenly quits the Irving Place to work elsewhere, Chauncey brings Ned on as a last-minute replacement. In spite of an awkward beginning, Chauncey guides him through the sketch, and Ned is given a job at the theater as a stooge in Chauncey’s sketches. Ned and Chauncey’s relationship becomes known and accepted by Ephraim and the theater’s strippers, who become part of their regular circle of friends.

Before one performance, word reaches the troupe that the commissioner of licenses, Paul Moss, is in the audience with a number of policemen. Ephraim tells Chauncey not to play the nance character for fear of a police raid. However, unable to think of other dialogue, Chauncey plays his trademark character, kisses Ephraim onstage, and the theater is raided.

Act two begins with Chauncey in court. He defends burlesque and free expression, but serves two nights in jail. On being released, he is embarrassed to find the other members of his company are treating him as a hero. Under the new restrictions on burlesque, Chauncey is limited to performing one “nance” sketch played in drag, which he finds demeaning. The jokes in his routines turn increasingly derogatory. The other members of the company urge Chauncey to participate in a planned walkout by all the entertainment unions in the city. The conservative Chauncey is reluctant to join in. Eventually, the walkout is cancelled when the unions agree to LaGuardia’s restrictions.

Chauncey’s relationship with Ned begins to suffer as he starts resorting to anonymous sexual encounters in parks. He starts turning away from Ned, who is now more open about his own sexuality. Ned asks Chauncey to be monogamous for him, and Chauncey initially agrees. Several weeks later, however, Ned finds Chauncey again at the automat, looking for one-night stands. Chauncey rejects Ned, telling him he has lost interest in him, and that he prefers “to be used and discarded.” Ned, sensing the imminent shutdown of burlesque, tells Chauncey he has taken a job as an ensemble member in a tour of Red, Hot and Blue and asks Chauncey to join him as a last try at a monogamous relationship. Chauncey insists the crackdown on burlesque is temporary, and that he will stay where he is. Confessing his self-hatred, he rejects the offer of a monogamous relationship, telling Ned, “This is not what I should be having.” He kisses Ned goodbye, but is (ironically) seen by a policeman who arrests him for deviant behavior in public after Ned has left.

Finally, Chauncey appears on stage in complete drag, playing an old prostitute. In the middle of the sketch, his loss hits him and he breaks down, alternating between grief and professional composure. Shortly after, the Irving Place Theater is closed down. Ephraim and the girls leave to perform out of state. It is revealed that Chauncey, as a repeat offender and banned from leaving New York, was offered leniency if he named the other party, (i.e., Ned), but refused to do so. The other company members sadly tell him goodbye. Chauncey stands alone on the stage of the Irving Place. As he softly sings a verse of his trademark song, a piece of the ceiling falls, narrowly missing him, and Chauncey remains center stage under a broken spotlight as the curtain falls.