SOURCE: A review of Love! Valour! Compassion!, in The New Leader, Vol. LXVIII, No. 2, February 13, 1995, p. 23.

[In the following mixed review of Love! Valour! Compassion!, Karfér states that "McNally shows little originality or audacity."]

The progress and regress of homosexual life is usually left to the political propagandists on either side. You can get a more accurate (and less shrill) summary by comparing two comedies, staged 25 years apart.

In 1969, Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band featured a group of nine gay men in the crosscurrents of professional and social life. Some were tragic, some funny, some faithful, some promiscuous. Almost all stayed in the closet. "Show me a happy homosexual," said a character, articulating the play's most famous line, "and I'll show you a gay corpse."

In 1995, Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion! features a group of eight gay men in the crosscurrents of professional and social...