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He gets marvelous performances from his two stars. You worry not only for the relationship of the two men, but their safety and, in the end, their future.ĭirector Max Friedman does a superb job of keeping the play running along as an admirable musical and at the same time, a pretty fierce and worrisome drama. The combination of the police raids on gay bars, organized crime and the fractured relationship between Trevor and Arthur at the end of the play works nicely.
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Until Stonewall, the gangsters knew how to deal with the police, too, and that benefitted gay patrons. A number of top gangsters ran the clubs and made a nice profit. The mob saw the gay clubs as a gold mine because no one complained of conditions there, pretty dismal at times, because it was an oasis from a cruel world.
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Historically, most of the gay bars in New York in the 1960s were owned or run by the Mafia. They also stepped men from dancing with each other or displaying any signs of affection. Bar owners, tipped off, changed the coloring of lights or clicked lights on and off to warn their gay patrons of a raid. The NYPD was obliged to raid gay clubs because they were illegal. The story of police harassment of gays in bars in the 1960s is told well. Record companies in the 1960s also insisted that lyrics connected to gay life be cut out or, more likely, rewritten slightly to turn the gay love stories into heterosexual romances. When he had a chance to record them, though, the record company insisted that they be changed to a man loving a woman. As an example, in the play Arthur wrote a number of songs about a man professing his love for another man. There is a lot of history in the play, stories you sort of remember but need to be reminded about. Will the two lovers prevail, despite all the hurdles put in their way or, as in many cases, will the musical success of one cause a break up? It gets deeper and deeper as the story rolls on, though, and very complicated in the end. As first, it is what appears to be a dull two man show about guys who met at a bar. The play, smartly directed by Max Friedman is well-written and at first deceiving. The music by Sonnenblick is marvelous and you could pick any famous singer (Sinatra came to my mind) who could have performed the melodious and well-written tunes in the show. Midnight at the Never Get has a lot of drama in it, especially for anyone who was around in the 1960s and was an eyewitness to the police war on the gay community. The third is the story of the police crackdown on illegal gay bars in the 1960s, culminating in the infamous Stonewall raid of June 28, 1969, that led to riots, the start of the gay rights movement and a new day for the gay community. The second is the story of their club act and the bar. The first story is the love affair between the two men, white hot at first. It is a tale told on several levels and each blends into the other. Peter’s Church at 54th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York, with book, music and lyrics by Mark Sonnenblick is their story. Midnight at the Never Get, a smartly written, enchanting and rich musical with deeply drawn and highly likable characters, that opened last night at the York Theater at St. They soon developed a two man show, “Midnight at the Never Get” that became popular. This effort got them jobs as performers at the Never Get, a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village. Arthur wrote songs for Trevor and he sang them for audiences. They became romantic partners and started a musical collaboration. That’s when young singer Trevor Copeland arrived in New York and stumbled into a relationship with pianist and composer Arthur. It was a rough, problematic, turbulent world for the bars and their gay patrons. They stayed open because of bold owners, large crowds of patrons and police who, bribed, tipped off owners before a raid. In the 1960s, gay bars in New York City were illegal.