Tarnished but alluring, Off-Broadway’s ‘The Gold Room’ probes gay attraction
queerty.comWelcome to Curtain Call, our mostly queer take on the latest openings on Broadway and beyond.Jacob Perkins’ abstract new work opens on an anonymous sexual encounter between two middle-aged men.
They met on an app – most likely. But while ‘One’ (Robert Stanton) asks many intimate questions, ‘Two’ (Scott Parkinson) prefers to keep it impersonal.
As ‘One’ and ‘Two’ begin role-playing, Perkins’ kaleidoscopic work shifts and changes, hurtling the pair through an array of revealing situations, each one attacking a new facet of the queer experience.The Gold Room is difficult to describe and, often, just as difficult to follow.
Neither character is named. ‘One’ seems to remain the same person throughout the play: a timid, uncertain figure cautiously exploring his queer identity in middle age. ‘Two’ takes on a wider variety of roles — a doctor, an artistic director — all of them authority figures who carry more experience, particularly one potential hook-up who talks ‘One’ through the step-by-step practicalities of anal sex: “lots.
