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| Chandler Hill Harben, Jeremy Stockwell, Lester Rawlins. |
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| Chandler Hill Harben, Jeremy Stockwell. |
The 1970s were a decade in which gay people were more
openly declarative of their sexual inclinations than at any previous period in
modern history. Some, however, continued to fear repressive measures if they
chose to “come out of the closet.” “Lee Barton,” the pseudonymous author of Nightride was such a one, a man who was
unprepared to face the social opprobrium he knew would greet him among friends
and business acquaintances if he were to reveal his sexual nature. He called
for other hidden gay artists to stand to stand up for gays, so that men such as
he would not feel so threatened professionally for their sexuality..
In Nightride, he
treated, somewhat melodramatically, the quandary of a renowned middle-aged
playwright, Jon Bristow (Lester Rawlins), a man saddled with the burden of
homosexuality—as per the playwright’s perspective—as well as alcoholism. Jon's career is running at low gear in the face of an ever-deteriorating artistic
output. He is visited in his Puerto Rican home, where he lives with his lover, Peter (Jeremy Stockwell), by a gay rock star, Jab Humble (Chandler Hill Harben), who wants Jon to use
as lyrics some revealing poetry written years earlier about a love affair
between Jon and a young man. To the singer, the exposure of these poems
will strengthen the gay cause, but the offer doesn’t appeal to the playwright,
who wishes to remain in the closet.
The theme had interest for various critics, such as Clive
Barnes, for whom it was “a serious play about homosexual life that makes no
apologies and reveals no regrets.” But he also pointed out that the work took “a
simplistic attitude” toward its material, and was flawed in several areas. Dick
Brukenfeld thought it occasionally quite honest, but conceded that “the play
proceeds more as argument than as experience, more as soap opera than as drama.”
He said it too closely resembled the “muddy, ideological melodramas” of the old
Broadway stage.
Lester Rawlins as Jon Bristow was widely praised. Barnes
wrote, “Mr. Rawlins provides a magnificently rich and controlled
interpretation. . . . [H]e weaves his way through all the false thickets of his
part and all the phony confusions of his style to offer a performance that is
both honest and poetic.” Rawlins won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding
Performance for his efforts.