Charles
Isherwood

November 6, 2016

A couple comes together, breaks apart and just about everything in between in “Homos, or Everyone in America,” a daringly frank, funny and affecting new play by Jordan Seavey that’s really — despite the second part of the title — about urban gay life in America, its complexities, its pleasures and, sadly, its dangers. How it applies to “everyone” else isn’t altogether clear. On the other hand, the provocative first word of that title — which could be perceived as derogatory — is entirely appropriate. With its bursts of blunt sexual talk, the play, which opened Sunday at the Bank Street Theater in a spiffy Labyrinth Theater Company production, is definitely not for the PG-13 crowd, or for that matter the P.C. crowd. (One of the characters goes on an anti-Semitic screed when his Williamsburg, Brooklyn, landlord raises his rent — then defends himself by saying he himself is Jewish.) But Mr. Seavey’s portrait of young gay New Yorkers negotiating the sometimes thorny nature of love and intimacy has an arresting, even bruising honesty: At times, it feels like a dramatized field guide to the lives of gay men of the characters’ generation. (They are said to be in their late 20s to early 30s.) And the zesty writing, which is often choppy and fragmented but always natural, is given an energizing boost by the superb performances of Michael Urie (“Buyer & Cellar,” “Ugly Betty”) and Robin De Jesús in the two primary roles. (The play’s other two characters are minor.)