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October 19, 2017

When Michael Urie and Mercedes Ruehl start to cut each other’s hearts out in the second act of Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song,” your responses are likely to be deeply divided. “Stop that right now!” you think. Because what they’re doing feels too painful, too private and quite possibly too close to your own home for public consumption.

But another part of you is flushed with the thrill that comes from watching two ideally matched performers, at the top of their games, demonstrating the unholy power of flesh and blood to wound its own. Portraying a New York drag queen and his mother visiting from Miami, Mr. Urie and Ms. Ruehl make a strong case for a fiercely tugged umbilical cord as the ultimate weapon of destruction.

Not bad for a three-decades-old comedy that would seemed to have passed its sell-by date years ago.

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