By the time The Nance reaches its final image, Chauncey Miles is almost entirely alone. The theater around him is closing, the ceiling begins to give way, and he remains beneath a damaged spotlight, singing the number audiences know as his signature. It is an ending that captures the contradiction at the heart of the Lincoln Center Theater production: Chauncey can perform defiance in public, yet he remains unable to escape the self-hatred that governs his private life.
That role is played by Nathan Lane, who carries the filmed production as a Depression-era comedian specializing in burlesque's “nance” character. Lane is outstanding, and his performance gives Chauncey both comic authority and painful vulnerability. Still, watching a stage production from a couch is not the same experience as seeing it in person, particularly when the running time approaches two and a half hours. My reaction to The Nance is therefore a personal one, and other viewers may respond to its rhythm and structure very differently.
A performer trapped inside the joke
The story takes place in 1930s New York City, when homosexuality was not merely condemned socially but treated as a crime. Burlesque theaters offered inexpensive, disreputable entertainment built around women dancing in revealing costumes and a steady supply of crude adult humor. Among the familiar figures was the nance, a caricature of a gay man. The joke depended on an uncomfortable fact: the part was generally played by a straight actor.
Chauncey Miles breaks that pattern. He performs the nance onstage, but he is gay offstage as well. His life changes when he meets Ned, a newcomer to the city who has arrived without a home after leaving his wife. Chauncey first believes Ned is a straight man experimenting with his curiosity. Ned corrects him: he is gay too. Their attraction develops into a relationship, and Chauncey helps him find work at the theater.
Their romance unfolds while the theater itself comes under increasing threat. Mayor La Guardia launches a campaign against burlesque, condemning it as morally corrupt. Ephraim, the theater manager, warns Chauncey that his openness is attracting attention from two directions: gay men in the audience and the police. Chauncey is politically aligned with La Guardia—he is a Republican and supports the mayor—so he assumes the crackdown will eventually pass.
Instead, he tests the danger directly. With police officers watching from the audience, Chauncey exaggerates the nance performance and kisses Ephraim onstage. The theater is raided. Chauncey spends a short time in jail, but the experience does not make him feel courageous or triumphant. He resents being treated as a symbol or hero, while the continuing suppression of burlesque leaves him increasingly embittered.
Love cannot easily reach Chauncey
Ned's own journey moves in the opposite direction. Having left his marriage upstate to discover who he is, he becomes more secure and emotionally open. He wants Chauncey to build a committed, monogamous relationship with him. Chauncey agrees, then almost immediately violates that promise by returning to anonymous encounters in the park.
When Ned catches him cruising, Chauncey rejects him with startling cruelty. He admits that he wants to be used and discarded. The confession explains much about the character: he is not simply afraid of exposure; he has come to believe that humiliation and abandonment are what he deserves. Ned's devotion begins to break through Chauncey's defenses, but it cannot overcome them.
As burlesque's future grows increasingly hopeless, Ned accepts a touring job elsewhere. Before leaving, he offers Chauncey one last chance to come with him and attempt a faithful life together. Chauncey refuses. He acknowledges how deeply he hates himself, kisses Ned goodbye, and is arrested for public indecency moments later.
The collapse continues onstage. Chauncey performs in full drag and suffers a breakdown during the number. Eventually, the theater closes. Because he is facing charges as a repeat offender, authorities offer him a reduced sentence if he identifies Ned. Chauncey refuses to betray him. In the final performance, he is left standing alone as the people around him disappear, singing beneath a broken light while the building itself seems to crumble.
Strong performances, uneven patience
The production's greatest strength is the bond between Chauncey and Ned, along with the unequal emotional ground on which that bond is built. Ned loves openly and without wavering; Chauncey keeps searching for connection while protecting the shame that prevents him from accepting it. Nathan Lane and his co-star make the relationship's development convincing, and the acting throughout the production is excellent. The staging and overall production quality are equally impressive.
My difficulty was less with the performances than with the repeated burlesque routines and musical interludes. Their comic material reflects and satirizes the events in Chauncey and Ned's lives, but I found those sections increasingly slow as the play continued. That may say as much about my own attention span as it does about the show. I also suspect I would have appreciated the production more in a theater than on television.
Chauncey is, in certain respects, a man ahead of his time. Yet he is also imprisoned by the time in which he lives—and by the darker prison inside himself. He reaches toward a life he cannot quite articulate, then retreats into the shadows where he feels safest. The production is beautifully acted and carefully made, but my personal response remained more restrained than its quality might warrant.
(5/10)
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