Take Me Out

Wet naked baseball players portray
the meaning of coming out

By Ruby Lips, Nov 2002
It was one of those classic New York episodes. A quiet Sunday afternoon, the phone rings, a friend says, "We have an extra ticket for a play tonight, wanna go?" Anywhere else, its an insult to be the last one to be offered the ticket; but here, a last minute ticket is the spice of life in the big City. The episode follows: Standing on the sidewalk at the appointed 15 minutes before showtime. Five minutes pass, hmm, I had a Mikky D standing up to be here on time whilst they dine casually, ah well. Ten minutes pass, shit, is this the right theatre? The scalpers, whom I have already told "no" three times, think I’m some kind of prick. The lights blink, everyone goes inside. I’m the last one standing outside as the show starts. Sigh, I begin to walk away; and then a taxi screeches up and my friends jump out; quicky kissy cheeks, as they breathlessly explain some drama with a nightmare dinner on the upper west side. In we go, automatically putting on Noo Yawk faces that say, "We’re too important to even arrive 5 minutes early like other New Yorkers." The smiling ushers think, "Yah right! You all live in sixth floor walk-up studios in Queens."

Take Me Out is the name of the play, at the Public Theatre on Lafayette just below Astor Place. Its about a baseball player who comes OUT and everything that ensues as a result. There is total nudity. It is non-stop hysterically funny. It is ‘theatre in the oval’ in a giant room that was once an Astor palace library. The choreography is absolutely crack, like a baseball bat hitting a ball, the lights flash, the crowd roars. Most of the story takes place in the locker room, of course. I’ll wait while you fan yourself, luv. There are working showers that come down from the high rafters. I’m not saying that the people who created this show are queer; I just don’t think straight people are clever enough to be this brilliant. It is very difficult to keep a New York audience in NOHO cackling their asses off non-stop for 90 minutes; this show does it. The crystal clear dialogue, with totally tweaked body mikes, and well lit sight gags, along with pristine timing, all help the endless humor. But, of course, Take Me Out is a serious morality play. All the Greek Characters are in the dramatis personae. There is the Chelsea queen financial manager, the hunky  gay baseball player, the intellectual phantom protagonist, the gruff team manager, the innocent cutie, and the dumb racist asshole, among others. What happens, without my telling you anything, is that there are unforeseen consequences that result from a famous baseball player courageously coming OUT publicly. But, what you need to know is that, like the Chelsea queen financial manager who didn’t know a baseball from a prune at the start of the story, you don’t need to know anything about baseball nor have any interest in it to love this play.

The actors are all genuine thespians and some of them might even be real homothexuals. The title is a multiple entendre, the permutations of which should be obvious by now. And yet, the story itself is so well conceived that nothing at all is obvious until it unfolds. There are, shall we say, unexpected developments in this tale. I would not have gone to see it, but you should.