TORCH SONG TRILOGY w/ Mom!

Summary

Broadway Breakdown: "TORCH SONG TRILOGY w/ Mom!"

Date: November 10, 2022
Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: Danny Tickton Koplik (Matt's mother)

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Overview

In this episode of "Broadway Breakdown", host Matt Koplik and his mother, Danny Tickton Koplik, take a deep dive into Harvey Fierstein’s seminal play "Torch Song Trilogy." The conversation explores the play’s history, its impact on Broadway, the evolution of queer representation, and Matt and Danny’s personal reactions—anchored by the mother-son dynamic that mirrors the play’s third act. The episode is marked by humor, heart, insightful theatre commentary, and candid mother-son banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction and Context of "Torch Song Trilogy"

[03:47]

• Danny: Summarizes the plot: "It is about an out gay drag queen who...is more sensitive than stereotypes might suggest...and he falls in love with a bisexual man."
• Matt: Explains its three-part structure: "Act one is called the International Stud. Act two is called Fugue in a Nursery, and three is Widows and Children First."

2. Personal Connection and History

[01:51 – 02:22]

• Matt: Asks his mother about her recollections of the play and Harvey Fierstein’s rise.
• Danny: Did not see it when it first arrived on the scene, though she lived through its era.

3. The Structure: Plot vs. Theme

[03:47 – 06:10]

• "What's it about?" vs. "What's the plot?" Danny and Matt differentiate between the narrative and the deeper thematic content:
  • Central theme: "Arnold stays true to himself...Other people change, and he stays very true to himself."
  • The trilogy covers Arnold’s journey through love, loss, family and self-acceptance across three life stages.

4. The Iconic Third Act: The Mother-Son Showdown

[06:10 – 07:08]

• The arrival of Arnold’s mother in Act 3 (originally played by Estelle Getty) injects familial conflict and intergenerational drama into the story.
• Danny notes the emotional engagement: "If we go with the fidget meter, I didn't fidget at all over a quadrillion hours."

5. Blending Humor and Heartbreak

[07:46 – 08:52, 11:42]

• Matt discusses Harvey Fierstein’s process: "You couldn't lecture an audience. It had to be a conversation...what better way to let an audience in than humor?"
• Comedy is used as an entry point for difficult truths: "It played as comedy because it was so true...it played as comedy because it was so true."

6. Genesis and Development of the Play

[08:04 – 14:00]

• Arnold’s story is semi-autobiographical for Fierstein; many situations are pulled from his life.
• The trilogy emerged strategically so Fierstein could guarantee himself a slot at La Mama—"tell her it’s a trilogy...it guaranteed Harvey Fierstein a slot for the next two years."
• The famous "backroom scene" is rooted in real experience.

7. Casting and the Show’s Move to Broadway

[17:39 – 19:43]

• Despite early commercial failures, glowing reviews saved the show and propelled it to Broadway, where it became a hit and won Fierstein the Tony.
• Fierstein’s unique voice suffered during the run; his performances are marked by vocal strain in recordings.

8. Act-by-Act Analysis and Character Focus

[19:46 – 32:17]

• Danny prefers Act 1 and Act 3, finding Act 2 too “messy”—Matt appreciates Act 2’s development of the female character Laurel.
• Laurel’s complicated reaction to Ed’s bisexuality and infidelity is discussed with nuance ("She put up with a lot.")
• "Ed acted like a stereotypical macho male prick toward his wife."—Danny, [27:03]
• The play wrestles with norms, binary views of sexuality, and the struggle for authenticity.
• Arnold’s growth is charted through his responses to unrequited love, self-worth, and eventual emotional maturity.

9. Emotional Honesty, Mistakes, and Redemption

[36:13 – 38:23]

• "People make mistakes." – Ed
  • Matt delves into how Arnold, like many today, can be rigid in defining people by their mistakes.
  • Theme of unconditional love, particularly parent to child, and the struggle for respect and acceptance.

10. Motherhood, Conditional and Unconditional Love

[38:23 – 45:54]

• Matt and Danny analyze the parental dynamic, comparing Arnold’s mother’s struggle to modern attitudes.
• "There is a fantasy that you’re gonna have unconditional love...but because we’re all flawed, we can’t really give unconditional love." – Danny, [39:48]
• The theme of parents seeing children as reflections of themselves and the pain caused by unmet expectations is front and center.

11. Societal Pressures, Sex, and Heteronormativity

[45:54 – 56:56]

• Matt critiques how heterosexual norms are “flaunted” yet denied, while gay men are accused of “throwing sexuality in your face.”
• Anecdotes about family and societal expectations for children’s lives, i.e., marriage and babies, and the double standards of what’s "acceptable" to discuss.

12. Relevance of the Play's Era: AIDS and its Shadow

[57:38 – 59:14]

• The trilogy was written mostly pre-AIDS epidemic, which colors the representation of queer love and risk.
• “When they say that Alan died...you go, 'Oh God, it’s AIDS.' But [it’s] because of when it was written...the play is technically pre-AIDS.” – Matt

13. Relating Play Themes to Personal Lives

[75:12 – 83:27]

• Matt draws parallels between Arnold’s story and his own past relationships and emotional growth, discussing “unconditional love” for someone who has caused pain.
• "[The] weird kind of unconditional love where eventually the pain hurts less, you grow from the scars, and you end up just seeing someone you care about really struggling, and it hurts to see them struggle.” – Matt, [77:38]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“One of the major reasons I brought you on to this podcast for this particular play, Mama, is because of Act 3. Because who shows up for Act 3?”
– Matt, [06:04]

“So Arnold...is the string that holds all three acts together.”
– Matt, [05:27]

“If you’re gay and the only people who know you’re gay are the ones you’re gaying with, that’s the closet.”
– Danny, paraphrasing the play, [22:19]

“People make mistakes.”
– Ed, [36:13]

“There is a fantasy that you’re gonna have unconditional love from children to parents and parents to children. And the fact that Arnold then is going to be adopting this young man, David, is another parental thing.”
– Danny, [39:48]

“Normal is not a real word, everybody.”
– Matt, [53:31]

“Unconditional love: I think we’re all capable of it. We’re not all capable of it all the time, even with parents and children.”
– Matt, [39:51]

“You don't want to forget him, do you?...That pain doesn't go away. You learn to live with it.”
– Estelle Getty's character, paraphrased by Matt, [70:03]

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• 00:33 – 01:51: Introductions, establishing guest and episode focus
• 03:47 – 07:08: Overview of "Torch Song Trilogy" plot and themes
• 11:25 – 14:00: How humor worked in the play and its real-life inspirations
• 17:39 – 19:43: Broadway transfer, casting, and Harvey Fierstein’s Tony win
• 22:19 – 24:00: "The Closet" and sexual identity
• 36:13 – 38:23: Human error, generational attitudes, and the risk of defining people by mistakes
• 39:47 – 45:54: Parental love, expectations, and generational conflict
• 53:31 – 55:25: Deconstructing "normal"
• 58:04 – 59:14: The shadow of AIDS and its effect on queer storytelling
• 70:03 – 71:54: The pain of loss and the mother-son reconciliation scene

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Closing Reflections

• Matt and Danny draw frequent connections between the play and their personal lives, offering rich insight into both the art and the reality it reflects.
• The play’s themes of identity, unconditional love, loss, and chosen family remain powerfully relevant.
• The mother-son dynamic in the episode provides a palpable emotional parallel to Arnold and his mother in Act 3.

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Additional Insights

• The episode ends with a brief history of the play’s legacy, its revivals, and a game connecting the show to other Broadway productions (Six Degrees of Jeanine Tesori/Sally Murphy).
• Danny’s closing thoughts highlight the pain in the mother-son scenes: “It hurt me like a stake in my heart, you know, that someone could reject their child that way.” [65:58]
• Matt’s closing: “What Arnold wants is someone in his corner. And by Act 3, he does have at least two people there.” [85:20]

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Links & Further Reading:

• bwaybreakdown.substack.com
• For more from Matt’s mom: DTKResources.com

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This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in queer theatre history, mother-son relationships, and the enduring humanity at the heart of Broadway’s greatest plays.

Transcript

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

I wanna be loved by you Just you Nobody else but you I wanna be loved by you alone I wanna be kissed by you Just you Nobody else but you I wanna be kissed.

[Matt Copl]

Hello, all theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL and welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called the Big Move, and it is covering shows that were so successful off Broadway, they just had to transfer to the Great White Way and try some luck over there. I am your host, Matt Copl. Like, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with me today is an icon, a legend, a twice past guest. Three times past guest.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Maybe twice.

[Matt Copl]

Twice. We did in. We did that in the Heights movie. We did the Annie's. Did we do another one? Prom. We did Prom three. Three time past guest. This is her fourth time. A nice quadruple. Danny Tickton Coplek, AKA Mom. Hi, Mom.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Hi, babe. How are you?

[Matt Copl]

Great. It's so good to see you. It's been a minute.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

It's been a minute.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. For those of you who don't know, I do live with said Danny Tickton Coppolk. We are roommates. It's a nice situation. Not permanent, of course, but we make do with the moment, you know?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, we do. We have fun.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, we do have fun, Mama. What piece are we talking about today?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

We are talking about Torch Song trilogy.

[Matt Copl]

Written by Harvey Fierstein. What is your history with this show? You were living in New York in the 80s and you were on the theater scene. Do you have any memory of when this play came out?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

I don't. I kind of all. It was always sort of in the background, and I assumed it was like a downtown kind of a thing, but I don't believe I saw it at the time.

[Matt Copl]

Okay, and. But you recall. Do you recall the rise of Harvey Fierstein?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You're asking me to go back a while.

[Matt Copl]

Well, so, like, I remember him obviously from, you know, the movies as a kid. He was in a lot of movies. Never as the lead, but Mrs. Doubtfire and the Death to Smoochie and things like that and then Hairspray, I felt like was a really big deal with him, and I was. And I didn't really make the connection of Harvey Fierstein from the movies to Harvey Fierstein and Hairspray, So I didn't realize that he was like a celebrity. But looking back at his career and research for this, it's an. It's A weird kind of rise. Because it felt like in Hairspray that he was like this national celebrity and he is and yet isn't at the same time. It's weird. It's weird.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah. Well, a lot of his credits are quiet, Right.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. Because being a writer, you mean.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Copl]

Writes a lot of stoof. Okay, so for those who don't know. Mama. What? So we went to the Lincoln center library to watch Torch Song Trilogy.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

We did.

[Matt Copl]

Where they filmed it at the Actors Playhouse before it transferred to Broadway because they wanted to capture Matthew Broderick's performance before he left the production. And I have some notes on that as well, in regards to Harvey Fierstein's memoir, I Was Better Last Night, which I did read, not all of, but the section regarding Torch Songs, so I could get some dish on it. We went, we watched, 5,000 hours later, we left. What would you say the play is about? Like, who's it about? What's the plot?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well, that's two different things.

[Matt Copl]

Yes.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

What's it about? And what's the plot? Or two different things.

[Matt Copl]

Yes. So that's not. We'll get into themes as we discuss. But if someone was saying, oh, Torch Song Trilogy, I'm interested in that. What's it about?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

It is about an out gay drag queen who kind of goes through life and is more. Excuse me. Is more sensitive than stereotypes might suggest because he has different relationships and he falls in love with a bisexual man. They break up because bisexual man is married to a woman.

[Matt Copl]

Getting married.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Getting married to a woman. And so Arthur. Arthur is his name.

[Matt Copl]

Arnold.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Arnold. Excuse me. Arnold hooks up with a much younger man, very attractive, and makes him feel good. He doesn't love him the way he loved the other man.

[Matt Copl]

Ed. Yes, Ed.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

But he comes to love him, and then there are collisions that happen along the way when all of them meet up. And there's a lot of drama back and forth about, are you really? Who do you really love? Who do you love more? Which is your truer self? With Ed, especially. And. And through it all, Arnold kind of stays true to himself. Other people change, and he stays very true to himself.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. So Arnold, which is the role that Harvey Fierstein played and wrote for himself, he is, you know, the string that holds all three acts together. Because it's called Torch Song Trilogy. Because it is in three acts. Act one is called the International Stud. Act two is called Fugue in a Nursery, and three is Widows and Children First. And act one takes place over the course of about five months. Act Two is about six to seven months later, and then act three is five years later. And everything you're saying is absolutely true. One of the major reasons I brought you on to this podcast for this particular play, Mama, is because of Act 3. Because who shows up for Act 3?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Mama.

[Matt Copl]

Yes. Arnold's mama, Mrs. Beckoff herself, played originally by Estelle Gettleman, who. Who changed her name to Estelle Getty. Sophia herself. Picture it. Sicily, 1920. What did you think of this play, watching it?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well, you know, it depends on what measure I use. If we go with the fidget meter, I didn't fidget at all over a quadrillion hours.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, it was in real time. Four. Four hours.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah. And long time to sit with headphones on, you know, but it was very engaging, very thought provoking, very heartfelt, lots of emotions all over the place.

[Matt Copl]

Very funny, too.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

And very funny. Yeah. But I, you know, it's. It's interesting how times have changed. You want to make sure you're laughing with. Not at all.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, well, that's sort of the thing about sitcoms, I guess, because a lot of the humor in Torch Song trilogy, at least for the first two acts, is a little more sit. Well, I say Act 1 and Act 3 a little more sitcom y.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Right.

[Matt Copl]

And part of that comes from a little bit of laughing at. Not in terms of looking down on them, but, you know, a lot of humorous situations come from characters either behaving badly or stupidly making bad decisions and then things happening because of it. This is. This has some of that. But a lot of the jokes, a lot of the laughter does come from intelligent jokes, wordplay and whatnot.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, the most. The one that I've been reflecting on is the back room scene where it is played for laughs. Yeah, Big laughs. And it is funny, but it's also extremely sad. So, you know, I guess that's the flip side of humor, is the sadness.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, well, so that's scene was the inspiration for the whole thing. So the way that Torch Song trilogy came about was Harvey Fierstein was kind of a jack of all trades, making no money, trying to be a writer, a performer, a drag queen, doing scenic design, directing, what have you, and had a relationship with the Off Off Broadway theater company, La Mama, and was sort of floundering, as many of us do in our 20s. And this was in the 1970s. And apparently there was a place called the Trucks. I don't know what the situation was, but it was essentially outdoor, anonymous sex, similar to a bathhouse or a back room of a bar. And Harvey Fierstein had a. Had an anonymous hookup that it was very similar to that backroom scene with Arnold, where it was very true, just pure physical. And Harvey Fierstein was so. Kind of felt so disconnected from it and also bored by it and tried to make it more humane. So rather than make it intimate with, you know, kissing, whatnot, he just kept on trying to make conversation with the dude who was, for lack of a better term, inside of him, and it just wasn't working. And he felt very sad. So he walked to Sheridan Square, you know, and had all these thoughts in his head and just whipped out his notebook and started writing it all out as a monologue. And he said, you know, this feels very real, feels very painful. And he goes to La Mama and meets up with one of his friends. And he says to her, I wrote this piece. You know, tell me what you think. And he starts reading it out, and she starts laughing, which, if you ever wrote something or are acting in something and you want it to be sad and they're laughing. It's like that line in Follies that Carlotta says. It was such a sad song, but it kept getting laughs. So they tell me to go out there and play it sadder. And I did. I'm in Philadelphia and I play it sad. 1800 people fell apart. It was that. And he was getting very upset about it until he finished it. And then she goes, harvey, that's one of the funniest things I've heard in a long time. That is so true. She wasn't laughing because it was bad. She thought it was great. But it played as comedy because it was so true. Truthful, but not in a painful kind of way. Which was a lesson he learned because right before he started writing this, he had written his own sort of. It was like. It was like an adaptation of the opera Tosca for this opera house downtown that had just been refurbished to film Godfather Part 2. And he, rather than do, like, an English translation, he adapted it for Downtown, where there are drag queens. And he was the lead. And there were spoken dialogue and all this stuff and just bonkers. And he said only real opera queens loved it. Everyone else was just baffled. And he realized that you couldn't lecture an audience. It had to be a conversation. You had to let them in. And what better way to let an audience in than humor? That is really a great way to let an audience's guard down. It's why, you know, so many plays that we think of as super dramatic, they Open with quite a few laughs because you got to get the audience at ease before you go in for the gut punch. I think maybe the only real, like, dark, serious piece I can think of that just starts sad and ends sad that people still love is Les Mis.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, I was going to say Les Mis.

[Matt Copl]

And Les Mis has. Yeah, the Thenardiers are played for laughs for the most part, and they are very welcome. But yeah, Les Mis. There is no laughter in Les mis until about 40 minutes in.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, that was exactly where my head went was Les Mis. And you know how much I love it. But yeah, samesies.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, but Les Mis is the anomaly. It's not the rule. Right. And I think what helps with Les Mis is the music. It's because it's so operatic in that way. It carries the day in the end. And so he adapts this monologue into a scene which is the backroom scene with Arnold at the International Stud, which was a real bar in New York City that had a back room. That's what it was famous for. Apparently the way the back room came about was it was supposed to be, you know, for showing midnight movies. And no one was paying attention to the movies. So the owners were like, well, we're not going to pay money for rentals, just like, do whatever you want. And that's what happened. And he did the International Stud at a couple of one act festivals and was very successful with it. And then La Mama was looking for plays for their next season and his roommate told him to expand International Stud into a one act because of something that had just happened to Harvey Fierstein in his life when, which was he fell in love with a bisexual man, had the exact same situation that happens in the play with Ed, where, you know, it's great. It's four months and then all of a sudden he starts to retreat. Oh, by the way, now I'm starting to date a woman, but I still want to see you. And back and forth and back and forth. And the first thing he writes is the phone call scene with Ed where he. Where Arnold says, you know, I happen to be in love with you. That's gotta give me some kind of right. If it doesn't give me the right to see you, at least I have the right to bitch about it.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, it was a great line.

[Matt Copl]

It's a great line. And so he wrote that whole scene pretty much as it is now, with a couple of tweaks here and there. And then, you know, move some stuff around with that. And then out of the torch Song Singer. And the way became a trilogy was his roommate said to him, send this to the artistic director at La Mama who he has a relationship with, and tell her it's a trilogy. It'll be cheap to do. And if you tell she. She loves doing trilogies, because apparently Lama had a big success with the trilogy the year before. And if he tells her it's a trilogy, not only will it give it some prestige and give her something to look forward to. It guaranteed Harvey Fierstein a slot for the next two years, and he would have a year to write each new act.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

How brilliant. Maybe I'll try that.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, we should all try. We should all try that. And he expanded International Stone into this one act, and it went over very well. He then had to figure out Fugue in the Nursery. Is it called Fugue? Yeah, Fugue in the Nursery. And as I said, came about out of necessity. And there's something in Fugue, I don't know if you remember, music is playing constantly throughout Fugue when they're in the bed, right? So we have the torch singer in act one, who's there for both scene transitions and then also just on theme, because the whole point of the title of the trilogy is that Arnold's life is sort of one big torch song. And Fugue in the Nursery came about with the musicians because, again, the artistic director of La Mama said, we've got these musicians that we have to use or we don't get to keep our government grant. So can you use them in any way? Harvey Fierstein was like, well, four characters. He's like, what's the next step here? Okay, Six months later, Arnold's got this boy toy, this model, former hustler, and not in love with him yet, but, you know, boy is in love with him. And it's the complications of all that. And I'll have a string. I'll have a string quartet play throughout. And each instrument is a different character. And that. And it worked. And then the way the third act came about was because he said to himself, okay, I gotta. I gotta finish this fucker. I gotta get some way to make everything conclude. And these characters have to grow up. And originally, what was gonna happen was that it was gonna be Ed Allen, Arnold. Alan is the former hustler, model, boyfriend. And Alan and Arnold were adopting this street kid, David, who also was gay, because social Services, right, or Child Protective Services basically assigned him to Arnold because they're like, we don't know what to do with him. He's gay. Maybe you can straighten him out or something, make him a little less awful. And that was gonna be it. But he knew Estelle Getty through family. And Estelle Getty basically was a late in life actress. She spent most of her life being a housewife. And then she started working in bookkeeping. And she always fancied herself an actress. And so she said to Harvey Fierstein, and you should put your mother in there. Write a part for me. I'll play your mother. So Harvey Fierstein's like, yeah, sure, Arnold's mom's gonna come in and, like, chaos will ensue. And then what happened was his roommate was cruising in the bushes, and he and a bunch of gays got attacked by some thugs. And his roommate survived, but got bloodied up real bad. And Harvey Firestone kept shouting him, what? You could have died. You could have died. You could have died. And then he thought to himself, well, Alan's gotta die. Then, like, he wanted to do something with that rage of what it. Of what he was feeling of what happened to his roommate and friend. And he channeled that into Alan being killed in the same way that his friend got jumped. And having Arnold grieve for him, and that also solved the issue that he didn't really know the third act was going to be about, like, thematically speaking. And he realized, oh, Arnold and his mom will connect and butt heads about being widows in very different ways. In the same way, and yet in different ways. And that was sort of how that came about. And then he premiered that at La Mama a year later. That really went really well. Here's what I was telling you before we recorded, International Stud got transferred to an Off Broadway commercial run and flopped. Then Fuqua for Nursery, transferred for an Off Broadway commercial run and flopped. And some silly man said to Harvey Fierstein, what if we did a commercial run of all three and we do it uptown by Lincoln Center? And Harvey Fierstein's like, I don't know. The first two didn't do well, and this is four and a half hours. But they did, and it was very well received, but no one was coming, and they were gonna close it two weeks early until there was a trifecta of glowing reviews from the Times, Rex Reed and John Simon, all in one weekend.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Whoa.

[Matt Copl]

And they were in a small enough theater that that was enough to. To get people to come and make it a big enough success that they then moved it to the Actors Playhouse, where they were able to continue that success. And the producer was like, this is not enough. We would like to go to Broadway. And Harvey Fierstein was like, I don't know. I'm not sure how much of a Broadway baby. Hey, Harvey's good.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

It is good. But I don't want you to ruin your vocal cords the way that he did.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. He claims that it's due to an overdeveloped second vocal fold or something like that. I don't know. I don't know. Science made worse by the. By doing the show. And he had a vocal. And so when we watched the video, as I said, it's because they wanted to record it before Matthew Broderick left to film a movie and do Brain Beach Memoirs. So he didn't get to go to Broadway with the show. And Lincoln center wanted to record the cast with Matthew Broderick. And Harvey Fierstein was still in the middle of fighting this vocal infection. And so he. He says in his memoir, he's like, I'm still vocally very, you know, rough. He's like, but it's still great. It's great to have Matthew's performance preserved. And that's something you and I noted was like, Harvey vocally was kind of struggling. And because of that, also, his diction was kind of off because he was pushing so hard. And then I found a video of him later in the Broadway run when he came back towards the end of Broadway run, and his voice is much stronger and his diction is a lot.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Better because I lost a lot of it. I figured I was just hard of hearing or something.

[Matt Copl]

I lost some stuff, too. Yeah. But again, it's four and a half hours. It was four and a half hours off Broadway. I think they got it down to about four, maybe 350. Because the producers were like, it'll be a fortune in overtime if we keep it the length it is. You gotta trim some stuff. And what he would do is because Estelle Getty was such a stickler about her lines, he would every line of hers that got cut, he would then show her two of his that got cut so she didn't feel like she was being slighted. And they open on Broadway, and a year later, he wins the Tony for actor in play. It runs for three years. They make a movie version of it. They have three different national tours. And yet you never saw it. It was in the background. You were too busy seeing Cats.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

That's a whole other story. Which we won't go into now.

[Matt Copl]

We won't go into the cat story. Of the three acts, Mama, which one did you like? The most.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You know, it's hard to say, like, because they challenge you sort of in different ways. I think probably it's a toss up between the first and the third. You know, I don't like a whole lot of mess. The second act is a whole lot of mess of. Of human mess, you know, and. And that's just. But that's probably the part where you learn the most. But still, in all I. That kind of commotion, that kind of messiness isn't my favorite. So the other two were better for me.

[Matt Copl]

I like the second act because it gives Laurel, who is the woman that Ed marries and leaves Arnold for, essentially. It gives her some humanity and some dignity as opposed to just being a plot Device. In Acts 1 and 3, we get some context for her. I mean, she's a mess of a human being, as they all are, but she does get to speak her mind from time to time.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yes, but then sometimes you say, I can't believe that's okay with her.

[Matt Copl]

It is crazy the things that we all have put up with or will sometimes put up with in the name of what we think is love. And she thinks that she loves Ed and I, and we learn from her. She finds out that Ed is bisexual. Once they're committed to each other, I don't think they got. They've gotten married yet when she finds out. But, like, they are in. They are knee deep when he finally tells her, oh, by the way, I'm bisexual and I used to have a male lover who I, you know, left for you. And it's. And it's important we know this because when we are told at the end of International Stud that Ed is dating a woman, and then, oh, by the way, you know, he's going to continue to see her and wants to see Arnold on the sly. He hasn't told her that he's bisexual. And he says to Arnold, I don't think it's very important. And Arnold's like, oh, no, of course not. To Arnold, your sexuality is very important because it's a part of who you are. It's a part of how you live your life, and it's part of how people see you. And the only way you can really be happy is if you're true to yourself. And that means embracing all of you. Arnold also has a very limited view on sexuality. And granted, it is 1982 taking place in the late 70s. Arnold's very binary when it comes to sexuality. You're gay, you're straight. I don't think he believes in bisexuality.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Let me tell you the line that I've really loved it. I'm going to paraphrase because I'm going to butcher it. I'm sure something like, if you're gay and the only people who know you're gay are the ones you're gaying with, that. That's the closet.

[Matt Copl]

Yes. He says to Ed that he's. That Ed is in the closet. And Ed says, I'm not in the closet. He says that the only people who know you're gay are the ones you're being gay with. You're in the. That's the closet. Or he says something like, did your tongue get caught on the closet door? Or something? And again, he's not wrong in the general sense. But I. I don't know. We don't get enough context about Ed's sexual escapades with women. And. And the only bit we get about his love life with Laurel implies that Arnold is a major driving force for him being sexual with Laurel. He says to him at the end of Act 1, sometimes I have trouble finishing with her. When I do, I think of you. And then when they're.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

When Arnold didn't want to hear that.

[Matt Copl]

He didn't want to hear that. No. Although he does leave the door open for him at the end of Act 1, and then Act 2, when he gets a fugue in the nursery. It opens with the first night in the country, the way that fugue in the nursery is usually. Or is it fugue in a nursery? I don't know. It's originally, it's set in a giant bed and everyone kind of moves all over, and it's very theatrical. But it takes place upstate where Ed has a house, and he and Laurel have been together now for about a year. And it opens with the first night there. Arnold is in his room with Alan and Ed is in his room with Laurel.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well, go back a second. Laurel thought it would be a good idea for the four of them to be together.

[Matt Copl]

Yes. Well, so originally she and Ed discussed it. Unclear if was Ed's idea or Laurel's idea. Laurel's the one who called Arnold, and Ed had no idea that Arnold was with somebody. And when Arnold told Laurel, oh, I have someone in my life, can I bring Alan? She said, sure. And Ed is not pleased. He does not like this. And it's for many reasons. The two headlines are he still is very emotionally connected to Arnold, whether he wants to admit it or not. And there is jealousy there. And then the other part of it is the side of Himself that has committed to the heterosexual life with Laurel, is trying to find some way to close the Arnold chapter. And he, In a very gross but relatable way, he thought by having Arnold come up alone and him sort of showing how happy he is with Laurel, even though he's not, and we've seen cracks in that already, he can sort of close the door on Arnold and be like, I'm done with that. You know, pathetic, gay. I have this life now. But, oh, no, Arnold's there with someone younger and beautiful and very sexually active who's so in love with Arnold that it's, like, sickening to see. And it fucks with Ed. And when the Act 2 opens, you know, Laurel's having the time of her life. Her opening line is, isn't this civilized? You know, my partner's ex lover and his boyfriend are joining us for a weekend in the country. And I'm like. And she goes something like. Something like Noel Cower wrote. Noel Coward wrote. It's like, yeah, sure. I think that's more like how Noel Coward lived, not how he wrote. And Ed ends up having sex with Laurel that night. And she knows it's because of Arnold. She says, so if this is Arnold's effect on you, let's invite him up every weekend. He goes, that's not because of Arnold. It's because I'm so into you. And do you remember what she says? What'd she say?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Why'd you call me Arnold?

[Matt Copl]

Yep. Is that why you call me Arnold? Which always gets a laugh. And she's. Whether she is being honest or not, she says, I don't mind.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Right. That's what I'm saying. She put up with a.

[Matt Copl]

A lot.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Right.

[Matt Copl]

I think part of her. It could be that. It could be one of many ways you could play it many ways. It could be this blind confidence that she has Ed, that they are together, that they're committed to each other and there's nothing to worry about. It could be that by not addressing issues, because what we Learned in Act 1 is she apparently cries a lot. And then Ed had a talking to her about it, and now the crying has stopped. And it sounds like all major issues that they have get sort of smothered. And it's just always pleasant all the time. So rather than acknowledge maybe pain of you just call me by your ex male lover's name while making love to me. She laughs it off of, it's fine, I don't mind. I understand, I understand.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Didn't you find, though, that he acted because There's a lot about norms in this thing and contravening norms and whatnot. But that Ed acted like a stereotypical macho male prick toward his wife. And, you know, reading the newspaper when she was talking and bossing her around and all of these things, it was such a stereotypical hetero kind of way. I just thought that was an interesting statement in the middle of all of this other.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Sexual charge.

[Matt Copl]

I think that's probably on purpose. That is, especially. You have to remember the mind frame that he's in when Act 2 begins. Because when we first meet Ed, do you remember how we meet at an international stud.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

He comes on to him in a. In a bar.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. He meets Arnold at a bar. So international stud. The first two scenes are Arnold alone, putting on drag and talking about his love life and, you know, his past loved. With a deaf man and. And all that other stuff. And then the second scene is Ed meeting Arnold, and it's done as a monologue as well. And then the third scene is four months later, and Ed is. Ed has a lot of the qualities that we attribute masculinity to in that scene, but he's not overtly butch. He's not making a show of it. And in fact, he's very kind of loose and comfortable and nice and inquisitive. He asks Arnold about his life. He's not turned off about the drag stuff, which until, you know, honestly, six years ago, was a major turn off for a lot of gay men, especially people like Ed, who don't consider themselves queer and don't really desire to be a part of the community. He just goes to the international stud to get off. Usually, he said. He says, I usually go to the back room, but not tonight. We're in the front. Here you are. And most likely was just trying to hook up with Arnold that night. But it blossomed into something else, which Something that he didn't want. He doesn't really want companionship from a man. He just wants sex. And I think with Laurel, he probably acts more masculine than he normally would to, in his mind, counteract the homosexual impulses. Indulgences, I think, because there's so much inner homophobia and toxic masculinity in Ed, he can't allow himself to be emotionally vulnerable with the man. He just can only use them for a physical urge. Urge. That's really the word I wanted to use is urges. And commits himself to the heterosexual side. And it's possible that he could be bisexual and could have a happy life with Laurel if he was more willing to embrace the queer side of his bisexuality. But it's so just under lock. Yeah, yeah. Which is why when Act 2 begins, and first of all, he's pissed off because Arnold and Alan are there together. And then on top of that, the boxness of his queer side of his bisexuality, he's kind of lashing out by acting more like a gross man.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah. It was also crazy because there were a couple of times where Arnold and Ed spent hours together in bed. I don't think they were necessarily having sex, but they were being very intimate in an emotional way. And the two other partners are kind of like, what's going on here?

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah.

[Matt Copl]

Ed and Arnold have. So the second day they're in the country that afternoon, Alan and Laurel basically spend the afternoon together because Ed and Arnold, as you said, are in bed just talking. They're not having sex. They're literally just talking. And the way that it's staged with Harvey Fierstein and Court Miller, I think is the name of the actor who played Alan, Ed. And they're kind of spooning each other back and forth and it is very intimate and. And it's very caring, but it's not necessarily sexual. At least not the way Harvey Fierstein plays arnold in Act 2. Regarding Ed, he's not pining after Ed. He's very confident and at ease with him, which is much different from the jitteriness that he was in Act 1 regarding ed. And I think part of that is the confidence of having. Having someone like Alan who they all agree is objectively very attractive. Being so into Arnold that it gives him. It's shallow to say, but it's honestly the truth. When someone you find so attractive, finds you so attractive, is just so into you, it doesn't number for your self esteem. And like all of a sudden you have a swagger about you and an ease about yourself that you didn't realize you were lacking until like this person who you're so obsessed with, is obsessed with you back.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well, he also probably did a lot of work to. To. To get over Ed in the beginning, you know, when. When they split and he chose. Chose Laurel.

[Matt Copl]

You don't have to do the air quotes. He chose Laurel. Yeah, yeah, it's. But Arnold doesn't believe in therapy really, which is so weird. He mostly just talks. He talks about how he talked the ears off of many friends getting over Ed to the point that he actually lost some friends because he wouldn't shut up about it.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, well, I Think he is talk therapy. Even if he's talking to himself, he's talking it through a lot. And I think that, you know, whatever defenses he may, I was almost like proud of him for being so level headed in the presence of this crazy setup and being able to keep that barrier, you know, the sexual barrier between him and Ed.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, I would say Arnold is probably at his healthiest mentally and emotionally in Act 2. He is so. He so wants love in Act 1 and looks for it in all the wrong places and is willing to accept any scrap of affection that he is just sort of begging around. It's why immediately after he and Ed break up, he goes to the international stud with his friend Murray, who we never meet and does the back room situation. And then we find out in Act 2 that he keeps going to the back room and, and not because it's emotionally or sexually fulfilling. He just kind of needs that connection. The idea of being picked, he says, he says to Marines, like, what if I don't get picked? It's one thing to get rejected in a bar, but like in a place where the lights are off and literally everyone's just there to have sex, to not get picked as like, whatever. And then he gets treated like the piece of meat that you're there to be and it's not enough. But he keeps going back like an addiction. But it does also, in a weird way help his.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well, it fills a hole, you know, it fills a hole.

[Matt Copl]

And also it's sexual therapy in a way. You know, he's having. He is, sorry to be vulgar, everyone, he's fucking Ed out of his system. The more times he has sex with randos, the less he'll feel like he's cheating on Ed. Which is that thing where you know when you break up with someone and you hook up with someone else for the first time. I also, I guess it depends on how close in proximity we're talking about the timelines of the two. But it can feel in a weird way like you're cheating even if you're not with that person anymore. Especially if love is involved. It's not just dating, but you really loved the person and there was a vulnerability shown. But yeah, Arnold really kind of. I don't say he relapses because he's still confident in himself and he's not really desperate for ed in Act 3. He's desperate for his mother's approval. But the, the sense of self that he has in Act 3 becomes sort of a double edged sword because he demands everyone live up to his standards of being a whole person, which is to be uncompromising all the time about who you are and what you're about and never let anyone make you feel small. But that is not always, on my opinion, the healthiest way to live. Because I don't know. What do you think?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You know, I think it's hard. I think, you know, you try to maintain standards. We set these things up for ourselves, to protect ourselves, pretty much. Right. And you have those kinds of standards. It is a difficult way to go through life. There's a medium there somewhere, happy medium, where you allow for difference, you allow for error, you allow for malaprops, you allow for people to say the wrong pronoun. I mean, you have to have that allowance in there because people are human and we're all quintessentially flawed. And anyone who doesn't understand that is in for just a life of solitude. Pretty much, yeah.

[Matt Copl]

Not, maybe not pain, but loneliness for sure. Isolation. There's that moment in Act 3, which at this point, Ed and Laurel were married for a few years and now are separated, about to be divorced, and Ed is crashing on Arnold's couch. And Ed is kind of broaching. Spends a lot of Act 3 with Arnold broaching the subject of trying again. And when they talk about sort of Ed's past with Laurel and sort of how he treated Arnold over the years, he says to Arnold, you know, people make mistakes. And Arnold goes, oh, I gotta write that down. Which is funny. But also, you know, it sort of shows you Arnold's mentality about mistakes and human error, which is similar to kind of where we are with a lot of people. Now, I've said this before, I'll say it again. So many people in our society, and I. I don't want to attribute this to everybody, but I will say from online culture, it definitely stems young. It stems from the younger crowd, from Gen Z especially, there is a tendency to define people by the worst thing they've ever done. And of course, some worst things are, you know, unforgivable. Ted Bundy's worst things can't give him any grace because intention has to do a lot with it. Malice, you know, if you intended to cause pain, if you intended to hurt someone or deprive somebody. But a lot of people, honestly just.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Are.

[Matt Copl]

Getting themselves into messes, don't know how to find a way out, are just figuring out as they go and fuck up and will hurt people, not always intentionally. And there is no better way to make an immediate enemy than by, to. By immediately categorizing said person by that thing they just did and defining them as that thing forever. And that person will never get a chance to grow. That person will never get a chance to do better, to make amends, to right wrongs, if you just cast them aside because of their. Their mistakes, even if it's to you.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well, Gen Z is going to have to let up a bit. I mean, the rest of the work, let's say in the workplace, there is a lot of accommodation, but they're not going to grow up in a bubble. Right. So there has to be some maturity that sets in at some point. Yeah, but I want to. I want to ask you what you think about this. I was just reflecting on Act 3 and Chapter 3, Trilogy 3, whatever you want to call it. And to me, because there was so much parental stuff in there and expectations about parental stuff and those relationships, the phrase that comes into my mind is unconditional love. And it's kind of like we're all looking for that, but because we're all flawed, we can't really give unconditional love. I think. But I'm thinking, you know, Arnold and his mother, the struggle that they have, he meets, tries to meet her more than halfway and she still huffs out. She doesn't understand. But we all think that. I don't know if we all do, but there is a fantasy that you're gonna have unconditional love from children to parents and parents to children. And the fact that Arnold then is going to be adopting this young man, David, is another parental thing. And I guess it starts out that relationship, starts out understanding the humanity of it.

[Matt Copl]

Which relationship?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

With David?

[Matt Copl]

Arnold's relationship to David?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yes.

[Matt Copl]

Unconditional love. I think we're all capable of it. We're not all capable of it all the time, even with parents and children. It's. No, it's true. And, and it's not. That's not a judgment that. And it's not, you know, as if every day is a choice to be unconditional or conditional. It's. Sometimes it's in the small things of, you know, of appreciating something that you asked me to do or something like that, you know, or vice versa, you know. And I think with Arnold's mother, what's tricky is that she does love him. She says so. And in her mind, his lifestyle is wrong. She does not hate him and she does not want him to be unhappy. But because she doesn't understand in her mind what he is doing is wrong, and she wants to correct it. It would be the same. It's a similar way of anyone, you know, if their kids were on drugs. In her mind, right, of how do I get my kid off this path? And I don't know if I ever talked about on the podcast. Do you remember the movie the Family Stone?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You'll have to remind me a little bit.

[Matt Copl]

Do I have to remind you? It was. It was a movie in the 2000s, I think we saw it at Tenafly Theater together. I hated it. They promoted this big family comedy, and then you go, and Diane Keaton dies of cancer. And the premise was that Dermot Mulroney is bringing uptight Sarah Jessica Parker to meet his very, like, bohemian family. Craig T. Nelson's the dad, which irony of irony is that Craig T. Nelson's playing a bohemian dad. Diane Keaton's the mom. Rachel McAdams is the sister.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Sarah is uptight, yes.

[Matt Copl]

Clears her throat. Luke Wilson's a brother, and they have a deaf gay brother. And there's a scene and they all hate her, like, just on site. And there's a scene at the dinner table where they're making a joke about how, oh, Diane Keaton loves our deaf gay brother. I think she secretly wished we all were gay. And Sarah Justice Parker goes, but you wouldn't wish that, right? And I was like, you big end. She. Her argument isn't that being gay is bad, but that as a parent, all you want is for your child to have the smoothest road possible in this world. And unfortunately, being gay adds a couple of speed bumps.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Who you talking to here?

[Matt Copl]

I know we've talked about, when I came out, we had this discuss, and I came out quite young, similar to Arnold. And I remember being really upset when watching that movie because I knew what Sarah Parker was talking about and I thought it was an important discussion to have. And everyone kept cutting her off and basically implying she was a bigot. And it'd be one thing if, like, the movie allowed Sarah to make that argument. For some reason, the movie just, like, decides to cut it off there and not explore how she actually has a point, but whatever. But in the same way with Arnold's mother, it's that, you know, she. It's not that her heart breaks for the pain her son has to go through as a homosexual. She. Her heart breaks for the pains that she thinks he's choosing to go through. You know, and Arnold is so blinded by the fact that his mom thinks it's a choice and that she doesn't approve that he can't see the love that she has for him. All he can see is the lack of respect. That is what does it in for him. And there's something to admire about that. But there's also a little bit of grace he has to have in order. You said that he meets her halfway. I don't think he does.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well, he tries to, and then they. They. And then he comes sort of almost like begging back when she's leaving. You know, just when she's about to leave, he's, come on, Mama, please, Mama, Mama.

[Matt Copl]

He has. He has. He's trying to show her the middle ground that they have and does it, and I think a very respectful way. And she blows up again because I don't think he fully understands the magnitude of how little she thinks of the homosexual lifestyle. It's played for laughs at first, you know, that she doesn't really ask about his life all that much, and. Which is also why he doesn't really tell her a lot about it. She didn't know how Alan died, but she did go to the funeral, and she. She's totally thrown when she finds out that Arnold intends to adopt David. She thinks that's, like, terrible. There isn't a nice joke about this where she says, at that age, he's impressionable, and you living your life this way is gonna make an impression. Do you remember what Arnold says to her? He says, ma, David's gay. And do you remember what she says? But he's only been here six months. Yeah, yeah. They only really find a slight middle ground at the very end, as you said, right before she leaves. And it's about pain.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

I want to go back for a second, because I don't think that when a parent rejects a gay child that it's solely because they don't understand. I think there is a lot of ego invested in having your child become a certain way, a certain thing that they think people judge them based on or the way certainly that generation was brought up is, you know, your. Your kids get married, they have the white picket fence, they have children. That ends. Not necessarily, but it. It can end. And the prospect of that, you know, there's some conversation about norms and what's normative. And, you know, it's. It's a different. It's a. It's a different construct. And only recently has a lot of space been made for alternative family structures and like that, you know, so it's. I think that there's a lot of her own. It was more about her than it was about Him, Sure.

[Matt Copl]

Well, children, you know, are often looked at as a reflection of the parents. When a child, when a child is behaving badly, everyone goes, well, it's really just telling you about the parent. Right. Did you ever listen to Dan Savage? Any of it, or read any of Dan Savage? Do you know who he is? He, I mean, he's very. He's got his podcast, Savage Love. And I listened to a couple of episodes and he talked about, you know, for the longest time, his mother didn't approve of his being gay. And he wasn't allowed to bring boyfriends over, but his sister was. And he. One night he shouted at his mom, like, while they were waiting for the train to take him back to York, New York. He was like, let's say his sister's name is Lisa. He was like, why is it you never, like, so you let Lisa's boyfriends come and, like, meet you? Like, he's like, why you object that I put dicks in my mouth, but not that Lisa puts dicks in hers? And she shouts because the dicks that go into Lisa's mouth could eventually lead to a baby. Obviously not. That's not how babies are made. But you know what she means. She's like, you know, by her being sexual with men and, you know, trying to find the right partner will lead to a family and the heterosexual lifestyle. There's no way that can happen with you. And also with a lot of heterosexual parents and heteronormative ideals. First of all, with America in general, we are very hush hush about sex. And it's gotten a lot better, but it's still weird. And I talked about this in the Rent episode. Especially with, like, pop culture, there's a difference between sex and sexiness. We market sexiness. We don't actually market sex because sex is not all lacy thongs and. And Jessie J music and high heels or greased up Old Spice men, sex is wonderful. It's also weird. It's awkward. Sometimes it can hurt. It can. All this shit. Things can go wrong, embarrassing, hilarious. It's very vulnerable and very intimate. And that's not something that's very marketable. It's something which is stupid because something everyone who's ever had sex can relate to. But all the things that happen with heterosexual couples happen because of sex. Like a baby, for example. I told you this story. Dear friend of mine won't say name because in case their parents listen, when they were getting married, their father sent their.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Careful. You're gonna identify the person by the story.

[Matt Copl]

Well, no, the person who this is about will know it's about them. But I am not saying any other details. Okay, so that way no one knows this person was getting married. And leading up to the wedding, this person's father sent their fiance at the time, or sorry, hinted at, hinted at sending their fiance at the time. A bassinet, baby bassinet that you had to assemble yourself without having any, any images on the box or instructions so that when it was finally constructed, it was until the final thing was done that they would see it was a bassinet. And this person's father said, don't you think that's good? Because then I can sort of say when it's done. I go, hey, do you get the, get the idea? And it made me a little angry because.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Just a little.

[Matt Copl]

Well, something that Arnold's mom says, you make it always about being gay. You throw your sexuality into my face. Everything's got to be about that. Why you got to talk about it, talk about it, talk about it. And I said to this person, this friend of mine, do you know what your father just implied? And I'm going to be vulgar with y' all in front of my mother because first of all, I'm vulgar in front of this person all the time. And she's also heard the story I said, your father is telling your future spouse, please fuck my child and ejaculate into them until it results in a pregnancy. That is fucked up to me. I don't understand why that is considered humorous, why that's considered allowed, you know, shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. And my friend goes, well, I don't think that he's thinking in those terms. I'm like, but that those are the terms. That is how a baby is made. The baby doesn't just magically come. That is what your father is telling your future spouse. And this person's father, lovely man. He and I get along super well. I have no qualms with him whatsoever. This is not him specific. This is the general concept of heterosexual family ideals and norms that no one likes to think about. They say that homosexuals are flaunting our lifestyle and our sexuality everywhere. Heterosexual lifestyle and sexuality is flaunted everywhere, all the time. It's never said explicitly because everyone just knows.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

I think it's a more complicated thing than what you're talking about. It has to do.

[Matt Copl]

It's always more complicated.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well, you know, it's how, how intrusive are parents into their kids lives? And you know, there's the old Adage of, like, once you get married, how many people in this bed? Because you start to replicate some of the patterns that your parents did.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

So, yeah, the whole thing was just a little weird to me. It's. It's nobody's business but the couple.

[Matt Copl]

No, exactly. Well, there. A wonderful thing I have learned in my old age is I have no qualms with getting advice from people I love and respect. People like you, people like daddy, close friends, past loved ones. And the only thing is that I ask for it. If I don't ask for it, it's because I don't want it.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

And you don't want it or you don't want to hear it?

[Matt Copl]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If there's one thing I pride myself on, madre, it's that I am very percept about many things, including my own life and situations. We're gonna talk about my life and how it mirrors this play quite a bit, to the point that my mother, as we were watching it, kept poking me through all of act one and giving me bug eyes. And I said, yes, ma', am with your tiggle bitties. What do you want? But so people will give you their $0.02 when you don't ask for it. And it comes under the guise of, well, I love you and I want you to be happy. It's like, great, but if I'm looking happy, why would you give me countering advice unless you think I'm in danger of something? Right. And that's sort of the tricky thing with Arnold and his mother. Arnold is rather happy in Act 3. He's got one major hurdle he's got to go through, which will. Which is an ultimate thing that leads him and his mom, if not to a total reconciliation, to a bit of a truce at the end of the play. But he's mostly happy, and his mother's offering perspective that he doesn't want because it's not really asked for. And she's not seeing the happiness that he has. All she sees is the sort of the. Is normalcy a word?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Normality.

[Matt Copl]

Normal. See, people use the lack of normality to his life is what she keeps on seeing. And that is always their point of contention.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

And what is normal?

[Matt Copl]

Exactly? Normal is not a real word, everybody.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, I wrote a whole piece about normal. I don't think it exists.

[Matt Copl]

There's a musical called Next to Normal.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

There you go.

[Matt Copl]

Yay. We'll cover it at some point on this pad. We're all over the place today. But, you know, what is normal? What is normal?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You know, don't ask me because I don't believe in normal. And I think every time we think we're getting to normal, something just upsets us. We have to be more flexible and adaptive and. And understand that it's normal is a deception.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

And that when we try to aim for normal, we miss out on a lot of stuff. And we're fooled because nothing exists in that complete state, steady state. Everything changes all the time.

[Matt Copl]

I think the only thing that really deserves some rigidness is manners and consideration for others.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yes. And neurosurgery, those things require.

[Matt Copl]

Yes, yeah, yeah. When you're doing any kind of surgery.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah.

[Matt Copl]

Precision. Precision. And rules section.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

And rules.

[Matt Copl]

And rules. Yes, absolutely Everything else. You know, there has to be some bend to. Because no one's the same.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Right.

[Matt Copl]

Everyone is different from each other and not everyone feels the same about what's right for them and how they want to live their lives. If someone is just trying to be happy and it doesn't physically harm others. I don't understand why there, why there has to be sort of boundaries. When has that ever worked? It's never worked. We see, history keeps showing us it never works. But there's sort of a simplicity to, I guess, bigotry. But.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yes, because it deals with stereotypes and it's very, you should pardon the expression, black and white. So it makes it easier for people to navigate the world rather than expansive. It's easier. It's not Right. Clearly.

[Matt Copl]

It requires less brain power and they.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Don'T have to choose what to believe.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. It's like. Well, no, it's. It's this. And it's. There's a simplicity to it and a stupidity to it. Honestly, it's. And it's what makes me kind of frustrated about it all. And bigotry is not just conservative against liberal. Bigotry is everything. It's. It's any kind of basic categorization of someone else. It's like what I was saying earlier about when we start defining people by the worst things they've ever done. That's its own kind of bigotry because you're refusing to acknowledge the nuances of a human being and all the other things. They are just the one thing that you don't like and it's upsetting and, but. And Arnold is sort of, if not bigoted. I've said this before. He's a little closed minded. He's very rigid about his views of sexuality and is very stern about what it is to be happy and to be free, and not everyone is on his level, and he doesn't really give a lot of grace to people who don't. Who can't get to his level. It's somewhere, you know, when people say, well, why do we have to, you know, learn about the past? It's not this way now. It's like, well, you gotta learn about it all. You gotta. You have to understand that not everyone is where you're at, and some people are further ahead, some people are lagging behind, and you have to kind of be encouraging to everyone, you know, And I feel like that's sort of a detriment of Arnold's personality, is that he's not that.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well, you know. It also could be a function of the times too, where you sort of had to be strong in your conviction, you know. Now I think everything's a lot more fluid, except when you get into those political divisions. But life has become more fluid. Families look very different, even, you know, gender is more fluid and sexuality is more fluid. Everything is just more fluid. And it never was. It was very. It was. It was pretty bilateral in. In the way, certainly the way Arnold was thinking about it. And I guess it was his way of. Of sorting the world, which is how these things.

[Matt Copl]

Well, let me also be very clear. It's very important to first of all remember the time in which Torch Song trilogy came out, because it was written a lot. The majority of it was written in the late 70s, and it premiered Off Broadway in 81, the full thing in 81, and then transferred to Broadway in 82, just as AIDS was becoming an epidemic in New York and America.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Do you remember when we were watching, I kind of looked over to you to find out when it was written or performed, because I was ready for Alan to have died of aids.

[Matt Copl]

Yep. Which is. Well, yes, when they say that Alan died, when you look at it with 2022 goggles, you go, oh, God, it's AIDS. Because also, once, like 1984 rolled around, any play about homosexuals had to. Had to address aids because you just had to.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Right.

[Matt Copl]

Same thing with, you know, any. Any work about New York City that takes place in the real world basically from like, 2020 onwards, has to address Covid in some way because it just. It was such a major and it still remains part of our life. But, yeah, no, it's because of when it was written. It was. It's. The play is technically pre AIDS and remains so. And that's also why sort of the backroom Stuff in the International Stud is done with flippancy because it's pre aids. Aids. The irony being that when the play premiered and flourished in America, it was as AIDS was ravaging the queer community.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Do you think Harvey Fierstein's perspective has shifted since then on, on whatever he was feeling conviction about? I mean, Arnold was his, his alter ego.

[Matt Copl]

I'm not entirely sure that Arnold reflects everything that Harvey feels because first of all, that's the thing is everything that I've said about Arnold that I think are quote unquote flaws about him is what makes him human. It's what makes him a good character. He's not perfect, he's not saintly, he's very smart, he's very funny and he uses it as a defense mechanism which is its own kind of humane rough spot. But he's also judgmental and he can be very close minded himself and a little holier than thou and that's what makes him a compelling character. If he were perfect, it'd be a boring four hours.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

No, of course.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. I think that the stuff that Harvey shares with Arnold is his history, his relationship history as well. And then the sense of humor. Harvey Fahrenstein has said that the character of the mother is not based off of his own mother, literally. It's more based off of his grandmother. Think a little bit of his father and the story he talks about in the memoir is. So his father died before he started writing Torch Song trilogy. He was doing some play in Boston when he got the news that his dad died. And in a lot of ways he said that was very freeing to him as a playwright because he didn't have to worry about his dad seeing certain things. For example, like an international stud, him miming, getting fucked up the ass. And he talks about going down to see his mom with his brother for the funeral. And he says, mama, you know it's crazy. You told me that daddy died. And I swear that night in the theater I saw him in the audience. And without missing a beat his mom goes, don't be ridiculous, Harvey. If your father died and was going to visit anyone, wouldn't it be me? Just like not no time for fools. The brashness is her. But she never. She came to see the play a lot and would bring friends a lot. Yeah, but she never. And she, she came to each act when they would premiere at La Mama and she liked the last one the most. And then when it all came together, she liked it a great deal and she was very proud, you know, when it Moved to Broadway and won the Tony. You asked me earlier, before we recorded, you know, if Harvey did the whole run of the show. He did not. He also didn't do matinees when he was in the show. He was in and out. And for a while you think, you know, it must be difficult to cast that part because it's so tied to him. And you know, part of the marketing of it was he was the playwright, he was the actor, he was on all the late night shows. But the show was successful with a lot of other different actors. And in fact, when it did transfer to Broadway, Walter Kerr of the times did not like Harvey. Yeah, he had not seen it off Broadway, but he. But it was one of those things where everyone in the theater industry knew about it, had heard about, was this big, bold theater piece about a queer character. And what made it so different at the time was leading up to Torch Song trilogy, most pieces with gay characters. The gay characters suffered. Boys in the Band, even Paul, you know, Chorus Line, either they were martyrs of pain or they were self hating. And Torch Song was really the first major work about a queer person that at least made it to Broadway where it was the main character was okay with his sexuality. Everything else was the problem. But Walter Kerr wrote in his reviews, like something must have gotten lost in the transfer here because all I heard were raves about this Firestein dude. He's like, and the play is funny. He's like, but it's not. I don't think it's terribly deep. He goes, I don't think Firestein is much of an actor. He's like, he does a lot of ticks. So it's interesting to think about that. But regarding him and Arnold. Yeah. I don't think there's much about him. But you said something, and I cut you off earlier about you and daddy as parents, a different generation. You said.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Oh, I think that was. I was saying that, you know, we saw you in. The thing that upset us was nothing about any of this, but I know. So I also think that if parents are surprised when their kid comes out, they haven't been paying attention. I do feel that. But, you know, maybe that's too broad a statement. But I think that if you're really paying attention.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, well, it's not just in the stereotypical tropes, much as our family loves to make those jokes at Thanksgiving. It's. It's, you know, it's in a lot of stuff. It's in. It's in how they react to others and sort Of. I don't know. There's a lot to consider when you're watching your child. Right. And I think as a parent, you want to be aware of everything and open to anything that your child might be going through or might tell you.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

I guess what I was referring to is when you were in a show at Stage Door, where it was called Bat Boy. And. And.

[Matt Copl]

And who was I?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You were Bat Boy with the strangest ears I've ever seen.

[Matt Copl]

Everyone take a shot. I did not bring it up. My mama brought up stage Door matter this time.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

That's right. That's right. And I'm a stage mother from. From way back. But seeing you in a cage was far worse than. Than anything else. I mean, it was. It was quite upsetting. And I think dad might have cried when he saw you in the cage.

[Matt Copl]

It upset Boo Boo that I was in the cage. He. And it was the summer after I did Seymour and Little Shop and junior year at Emerson. I did man of La Mancha, and I was Sancho Panza, where I never thought that my character died, was going off to die from the Inquisition, but BooBoo thought I might. And so when I did, she Loves Me senior year, and I said, what did you think? He said, well, you lived till the.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

End of this one.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. He said, seeing your child in a cage was no good. And then he also said, you know, seeing your child get stabbed at the end of a play and is not great. And grandma apparently didn't like Batboy either, because I didn't speak English for the first two thirds of Act 1. I get it wrong. She's like, when's he gonna talk words?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Copl]

I'm like, I'm sorry, is me being the title role of a premiere Stage Door musical not good enough for my family?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

But, honey, you didn't speak for the first two and a half years of your life either.

[Matt Copl]

Well, the timeline of that changes based on who you talk to. There's a reason why Laura Koplik, my sister, will never be on this podcast, because according to her, I didn't talk Till I was 15, and I was using Easy Bake Ovens every day until college. As she would tell it, that's the beauty of family.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Next.

[Matt Copl]

Thank you. Next. So what's something that's on your mind with this play that you would like to talk about? Because I've been. I've been taking the wheel here.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

I guess it's like, it. It probably need to see it, sit through it for, you know, almost four hours more than once. Because I'm sure there's a lot that I missed. And you know, when you sit through something and that. That's engrossing like this was, you're following narrative as opposed to necessarily thinking through. Through larger themes. And in retrospect you start to pull up those, those themes. So, I mean, we can talk themes if you like or. You know, I just, I was just so hurt by the scenes with the mother. It just, it hurt me like a stake in my heart, you know, that someone could reject their child that way. It was. Even though they came to some sort of rapprochement, but it meant that they had to separate. That is just like a fate worse than death for me.

[Matt Copl]

What's interesting is that she. You. It's a combination of hearing what you want to hear and all this stuff. Because the second they have two really big fights. And in the second one he says to her, I want your. I love you, but I want your respect. And if you can't respect me, I have no time for anyone in this house who doesn't respect me. And what he's saying is, please respect me. What she hears is, get out of my house.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Right?

[Matt Copl]

Because she doesn't respect him. And rather than try to work at respecting him so she can be there, her mind is going, I'm loving you how I can, considering all the things about you I don't like and don't respect. Why do you keep pushing buttons like it, like, let's just be pleasant about it. And there's again, that's sort of like where the bending and the given, the taking and meaning in the middle is of, you know, understanding. There's only so far she can go. Especially like in one. I know it's like they've had this relationship for years, but in this conversation, like there's only so far you can go in an afternoon with your mother, who has apparently been this way for years. And she's even said it towards the end, she goes, I'm too old, I can't change. Or at least not, not the way that you want me to. Not as much as you want me to. But I mean, I think their final scene is so beautiful because, you know, his father is. Had passed a few years prior. And what ends up being their first major blow up that brings them back together is when he talks about, you know, I was sick of widowing after Alan, you know what I mean? And she goes, you have the audacity to compare what you have with Alan like I was with your father for 35 years. I bore him two kids. We had a life. You know, all this stuff. What would you know? And then Arnold kind of throws it right back at her. And in the final scene before she goes, you know, they. They call a bit of a truce by him just admitting to her how much pain he's in. And despite how smart he is, how grown up he is, sometimes you need your mama. And he just wanted her to know, like, mom, I'm in pain. I miss him so much. And was just. It's a time where someone's actually asking for advice. That's a moment. He's asking for advice, and she gives it. And do you remember what her advice is? The interesting thing is Estelle Getty didn't like this speech. When they rehearsed it, she thought it was untrue. And then they do the first performance, and she says it's so flat because she doesn't believe in it. And it ends up working because it's the character kind of just not being saccharine, just started saying as it is. And the audience was. Went ballistic. And after that night, she was like, I always told Javi that monologue was genius. But what she says to him is, you know, that pain doesn't go away. You learn to live with it. And eventually it won't define you anymore, and it won't overwhelm you, but you're never gonna. It's never gonna go away. She goes, and that's good, because the pain is you always remembering them. And you don't want to forget him, do you? He says, no. She goes, great. So there you go.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

That's pretty profound.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. And. And. And she doesn't say it in this, like, beautiful Oscar Wildy way. She says it. Very matter of fact, it actually was.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Very respectful to say it the way she said it, you know, it was almost like she was talking to a peer. The way she said that.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, they. The way that the director told her. He said, don't say this to someone like it's your friend. Don't even say it to someone like they're. It's your child. It's someone you met on the street. That's. And that's sort of the lack of emotion she puts behind it, which is also. It really makes it more moving because you know she means it. She's not saying it to bullshit him. She's not saying it to call truth. It's the truth. It's just the truth for her. And she's giving part of her truth to her child in A moment of need.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

And in a way, she's sort of acknowledging the relationship at the same time.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. Yeah. And then she leaves. Yeah, but. But I don't think she leaves for good. I think she leaves before it can get bad again. That is, at least from the video we watched with Estelle Getty. The way she leaves, it does not come across on her face.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

No, it was gentle. It wasn't a door slam. It was. It was a slinking out kind of quietly while his back was turned.

[Matt Copl]

Yes, because he tells a story to David about. During his time with Alan, Alan called into a radio program to do a song dedication, and they read the name wrong. And so David does it at the end of the play for Arnold. And Arnold hears it on the radio and goes to the radio to turn it up and starts telling his mom about it with his back turned while she sneaks out. And he runs. He tries to run after her, but he's too late. And he's a little sad. But then he sees the tin with the cookies. Box of cookies that she made for him, and he sits on the couch and he eats it.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Not only that, he embraces the tin.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. Because he. It's him. I think it's him finally understanding that his mom does love him in her way, and he needs to. If he's going to get her to change in any way. He has to accept that fact first, that she loves him in her way, and that while she may not be able to get to where he needs her to be, he can maybe enter a little closer over time if he just gives her the grace that he is gonna eventually give Ed, as Ed's trying to kind of rekindle that relationship.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

So he's actually derived comfort from her twice. Once saying about the speech that. Mama. Yes, the Paine speech. And then also just sort of with. With the cookies. Right.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. And it's important as well, because that. That vulnerability that he's embracing again is coming at. Again at the time where Ed is trying to maybe broach the idea of trying a relationship again with David really instigating it. And Ed keeps getting sort of defeated. Arnold keeps turning him down. And David says to Ed, like, Arnold never says yes immediately. He always. He comes to it later, but you have to kind of wait and you have to keep at it if it's really what you want. And when Arnold's mom and he talk about Ed for a bit towards the end, she says, well, do you love Ed? And there's sort of a moment, and Arnold, you can Just tell that Arnold is thinking about the last six years and everything that Ed has put him through. But the bottom line is that he does still love him. The love has changed over time, but he still loves him. And it's probably why they're still in each other's lives. Because Harvey Fierstein talked about this in the. In his memoir. He was like, he says, exes can be friendly, but you can't ever really be friends with an ex, with a true ex, with someone who you loved, with someone who you were that vulnerable with, because you have altered each other's emotional DNA to the extent that you can't ever go to a place of camaraderie.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Do you believe that?

[Matt Copl]

I don't know, but I think. But he does. And I think that's important to think about when you look at the play of the Arnold and Ed of it all. Because if Arnold didn't still love Ed in some way, was not still in love with him in some way, I don't think that Ed would have been in his life all this time. Even when Ed. Even when Arnold and Alan stay together and Alan, Ed, by the way, hook up in that weekend in the country, in fugue, in the nursery, and when Ed marries Laurel and then when Ed and Laurel break up, like, I don't think Arnold would have been there all that time if there wasn't still a little bit of a romantic love on that end, you know?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, it could be. Yeah.

[Matt Copl]

And I. I don't know if I believe that. Believe that personally, for me, in my life. I'm just saying, from Harvey Fierstein's perspective on relationships, that is where I think some of that subtext is coming from.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

My problem with the Arnold and Ed thing at the end is, after all of that, can he trust Ed again?

[Matt Copl]

Well, I don't know, but you have to sometimes take a risk, don't you?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, I guess so.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. Do we want to talk about bub a little bit?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You can. It's not for me to talk about.

[Matt Copl]

But feel that shit eating grin you just gave me was all I need. It was all I needed to hear or see. I should suppose so. I guess we could say that there's a lot in Arnold's story with Ed that mirrors my own. Would. Would we.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yes.

[Matt Copl]

Life is messy, kids and you think.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Minus the back room stuff. But that's just a mother talking. I don't want to know. I don't want to know.

[Matt Copl]

Thanks, Estelle. No, I've never. I've never been in a back Room.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Please don't tell me I don't need to hear anymore. La la la.

[Matt Copl]

I'm saying I've never been to one.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Okay, good.

[Matt Copl]

I accidentally walked through one in Fire island, but I didn't realize that's what it was because it was a curtain. I was coming from the outside deck to come back in and didn't realize that's what I was walking into. Luckily, no one was in there yet. But I was told while I was walking through that that's what that was. And I went, great. I know where I'm not going back to. Not that I disapprove of it, it's just not my style. As I said, for me personally, in my life, sex is a more intimate thing and I don't want an audience. It's high. And I'll never be able to do an onlyfans, but do you know onlyfans? And you never will. But there is a gentleman in my life still, technically in my life. Although in what context he and I, neither one of us knows.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Do you really want to do this confessional?

[Matt Copl]

It's not a full confessional, but I'm talking. I'm giving some basic information to talk about the. This connection and a lot of what Arnold and Ed go through, emotionally speaking, this person and I have gone through as well. And the few people in my life who know the full story, you included, there has been a lot of discussion about trust and about why I have still remained in contact with this person as they go through this time in their confused life as they have hurt me. And the truth is that it is a weird kind of unconditional love where eventually the pain hurts less, you grow from the scars, and you end up just seeing someone you care about really struggling, and it hurts to see them struggle and you want to help.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

That's love. If it hurts to see them struggle.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, that's how you know it's fucking real. But I bring up this story a, because when International Stud was happening, the looks I was getting from you the entire time was just like. I completely forgot about the Ed plotline, actually.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

I wanted to make sure you were okay.

[Matt Copl]

That was not the face of the.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Wasn't an elbow thing. I wanted to make sure you were okay.

[Matt Copl]

Was I okay?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You seemed to be. It didn't seem to, like, register.

[Matt Copl]

I. While it was happening, my brain just went, oh, right, that is right.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You were thinking about the play. You weren't thinking about it.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, but I was also like, oh, right, that does happen. And I. I made the Connection. Pretty early on. I just forgot that plot line with Ed was the thing. I remember Ed married a woman. I forgot about the bisexual stuff. I. It's all I will say again. And I brought you on for this episode because of Act 3. I wasn't even thinking about Act 1 or Act 2. But again, with the Arnold stuff and with me and with people who hurt you and people you love, you have to give a little bend because there is so much more than just being wronged, you know, and maybe that's weakness on my part. I don't know. All I can say is I get no joy out of being a victim, and I get no joy out of having everyone feel sorry for me for being wronged. I want to move on from that. And if there is still joy from that person in my life and if. And if it's someone I care about and they are, again, as I said, if they are struggling, it's not something I'm happy to see. And as I said earlier, intention is everything. If they don't intentionally hurt you, if the hurt comes from their own messiness.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

First of all, I want to just clear something up.

[Matt Copl]

Yes.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

I don't think anybody pities you. I think people want to protect you from possible further hurt.

[Matt Copl]

Sure. Which is absolutely understandable. Absolutely understandable.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

But you're a strong person. Nobody feels sorry for you. They're happy that you found that kind of a relationship. They're just very distrustful. Speaking for myself, that it's going to come out as you hope and. Okay.

[Matt Copl]

But we've also discussed that there is no hope about a future on my end. There are fantasies because it's. It would be absolutely. I would be lying if I said they didn't exist. And I had to. This is where I talk about my multiple perspectives. This is. My hyperactive brain. Really is wonderful. Mama.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Your superpower.

[Matt Copl]

The number of times I ask myself a million different questions about my actions and what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And I have to really ask myself, what going on here. I don't know if you remember this. Speaking of my bitch sister, who I love very dearly, when we had dinner with her and Nanny your mother about a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, and I made a comment about sometimes feeling like I was being treated like a child by her and a friend. Sometimes when they call me Matt man. And she was like, you know, she was a little into it. And she kind of just made a very begrudging comment. If you don't Want to be treated like a kid, don't live with your mom at, you know, 30. And there was a beat and I just said to her very politely, there's nothing you can say about me that I haven't thought 10 times before I get out of bed. I know everything that you're thinking because I've thought it myself. I think all of them, the positives and the negatives and the middles. And the same thing goes with this situation, which is I'd be lying if I said there weren't fantasies. But I did ask myself, I asked myself every day, am I still in contact with this person because I have hope that there's a future? Am I doing this because I just care about them? Am I doing this because there's just an immediate gratification of speaking to them? All three are true. And I had to determine what was the driving factor. And through my own crazy I was able to firmly understand that my care for them was number one. My immediate gratification of speaking to them was number two. And my fantasies were number three. And that made me feel okay because not having the fantasies would make me a computer. But they're not at the forefront. They're not what's driving anything. And I allow myself to have them only because I can't not have them. But I do not in any way have an expectation about any of them in any way. In fact, anytime I get if I feel like I'm trying to get a little too carried away with a fantasy, I have a couple of key phrases that I'm not going to tell you or my listeners that I fully blurred inside my head to not shut them out, but to calm them down. Sort of like just, you know, enough of the go go juice, honey boo boo. Here's this cutting remark that you know is true. So you, you're still allowed to live, but you don't have your kneecaps anymore.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Well said, well said.

[Matt Copl]

Shkank you. I was raised by two smart cookies.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, you were.

[Matt Copl]

Yay. Just like my mom. I'm a tiggle bitty ho.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yes. But you, you're also amazing because you're so self taught about so many things. This of course, but life and people and you know, you have great keen powers of observation, but the way you put it together is, you know, people can be in therapy for 50 years and not get to where you are.

[Matt Copl]

But a lot of it comes honestly with talks with you. Talk comes from talks with you because you do ask a lot of questions and you make a lot of irritating questions. No, no, they're irritating at 8am they're not irritating in general, but. But the questions you have are absolutely very fair. And I never get frustrated with you. In fact, I think I've told you many times and you ask them, I've said, you know, I've asked those same questions to myself. And when you ask them, it just reinforces to me that they were the right questions to be asking myself. And it's what makes me more confident about my mental state about all of this. Because you, if you're asking me and I can give you the same answers confidently and I'm not questioning anymore, I'm like, no, it's like I've thought about it, I've been asked again and I stand by it. I think this is the ground I'm standing on. And of course it always can change. We've talked about this many times with my mental state after being with someone or not being with someone. There were those wonderful two years where I thought I wasn't a relationship person. And in those two years I wasn't. But I also told you I'm a human being and I'm a grown up and I reserve the right to change my mind as I change. And that did. It's what happened. I changed. And I am a relationship person now. Unfortunately.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

No, I think it's wonderful. I was worried before.

[Matt Copl]

You know, I would love nothing more than to just walk around with my Paddington Bear and tell everyone to fuck off, but unfortunately.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

No, no, no, you're way too young for that. I'm there now. But you know, you, you know, I. Relationships are tough, but you don't. There's so much that's rewarding about them that, you know, you have to sort of risk a little bit.

[Matt Copl]

It's about having someone in your corner, I find.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

So. So how does that then relate to Torch song and having someone in your corner?

[Matt Copl]

Well, that's what Arnold wants, is someone in his corner. And by act three, he does have at least two people there. And then of course, offstage Murray. Murray's always been in his corner. Murray's the one who helps him test the phone when he's Was Ed bullshit in act one. And Murray's there in the back room with him when he's getting over Ed. But he has people in his corner.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

He's not alone because he's gone from needy to not needy. You know, it's. It's a different kind of neediness maybe, but he's got you. Pain will do that to you. It grows you up pretty fast.

[Matt Copl]

Absolutely. That kind of devastating loss really changes that so much of life that seems so important. It just. It just shifts all of a sudden when you really get a kind of heartbreak that is indescribable to so many. And people will. Everybody goes through loss, but how they go, how that loss comes to them is very different for a lot of people. And it's not just that Arnold lost Alan. It's how he lost Alan. It's how it wasn't health. It wasn't violent. It was violent. It was a twist of fate, and it was violent and it was awful, and it should never have happened. And it came from bigotry and they were starting and they had had a wonderful life that they were just gonna expand upon. There was. There was more to come and they got cut short.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Isn't the sort of subplot there that Alan was in the bushes with other people?

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. And.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Oh, okay. I just didn't know that there. I wasn't aware that there a relationship allowed for that.

[Matt Copl]

I mean, we don't know what their relationship allowed for. We find out in Fugue and the Nursery that Arnold is still going to the back rooms, even though he's technically with Alan. Alan sleeps with Ed.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Fair enough.

[Matt Copl]

And it's possible they kept on with a open relationship. Every relationship is different. And especially in the queer community, what determines monogamy is up to every couple. So they might have had their things, I don't know. But yeah, that is the indication is that Alan had been in the bushes and he and a couple of gay men were leaving and they got jumped and the rest of them were able to escape and Alan had tripped and did not. Was not so lucky, which is devastating. But, yeah, that's. I mean, guys. So how my situation relates to Torch Song, first of all, just in the literal. There is so much plot. There's so much plot that's just parallel 1,000%. And then just some of the conversations about being true to who you are. What Ed. The character of Ed is interesting to me. And I watching it and reading it, I think Harvey gives him a lot more humanity than I think a lot of other hurt writers would have in their situation. Because Ed's whole dilemma is what he wants versus what. What. What he needs versus what he wants. I guess I should say what he wants is quote, unquote, normalcy, whatever that is. He wants a life. He wants stability. And in 1978-79, he doesn't think he can get that from a queer relationship. Here's Arnold willing to be his partner, his lover, his friend. And Arnold has his own hang ups. You know, Arnold is very needy. Arnold is very vulnerable. But Arnold is dedicated and he's there.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Talk to me. Yeah, talk to me.

[Matt Copl]

And Ed's like, I'll just get angry. He's like, then get angry, but talk to me. And Ed ends up making a bad decision with Laurel. And Laurel's not a bad. Is not a bad person. She could be a good partner to someone. She keeps on choosing emotionally unavailable men. And we find out in Act 2 that she's actually had a history of dating bisexual men or gay men. She claims she never knew until they told her later on. There's gotta. So much of it is just bad luck. But when it becomes a pattern, you gotta ask yourself, like, are there traits that you are attracted to that only come from men who are not emotionally or sexually available to you? But Ed, rather than doing introspection and asking himself, especially when he cheats on Laurel with Alan in that weekend, because.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

I thought he was cheating on Arnold, actually I didn't think about him as well.

[Matt Copl]

Well, he. I mean, he did it for many reasons. I don't think anyone connected, and none of them were connected to Laurel. But it was cheating on Laurel.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

And I don't think he thought of that. I thought he was hurting.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, yeah. And then afterwards. But afterwards, you know, he confesses to her.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Right.

[Matt Copl]

But again, we talked about this earlier with their whole situation. She's like, it's fine, it's fine. It's funny, it's fine. She says to Arnold, I don't know which one of us to comfort. She makes her bed as well, a very large bed. But Ed makes this decision based off of what he thinks that he wants. And what he really needs is what he can get from Arnold. They have the possibility all along of. Of a very beautiful partnership. But Ed just could not bring himself to do it and instead went with what he knew.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Conventional. Very conventional.

[Matt Copl]

Yes, very conventional. And by Act 3, because of the life that Ed has now lived and recognizing that marrying Laurel was a mistake and, you know, he can still get the conventional things that he wants out of being with her if he goes back to her, but recognizing that there's so much of life you can experience anew just by being happy. You know, even if it's not all the physical things, the big ticket things you think you want, just by being in a place of ease and comfort, not complacency, but just sort of naturally in your own skin, which he talks about being in. In that third act, you know, playing house with Arnold and David, cooking terrible food, but cooking and being a contributor to the household. He's very happy. And I think he realizes for the first time that he could. He has the potential to truly be happy, you know, and some people don't get that experience, and some people get a taste of it, and they still go with what they know, and they decide to make a life for themselves. And then some people stick with conventionality and come out at age 60. There are men in the gay chorus with me who didn't come out until a few years ago, you know, had had a wife and kids.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Copl]

And I don't think they regret having the children, but they regret the pain that they caused themselves and the people they love and not having the courage sooner to just be true to who they were.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah. I coach someone like that, too. And one of the reasons why he didn't leave was because he was a man of color, and he said he didn't want to have another fatherless, you know, stereotypical black family where the father went off and did something else. So he stuck with it for a long time. But eventually, you know, there are all kinds of ways that you can accidentally get discovered. Accidentally on purpose get discovered.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You know, it's hard. It's a lot to bear, I think, when you're not living and you're in your. The skin that's most comfortable.

[Matt Copl]

And. And again, the bisexuality of Ed is something to explore and how bisexual he really is up for debate. And I'm not sure what Harvey Fierstein feels. There's an Arnold feels, which is that he thinks that Ed is just gay, which I. I'm not sure if I agree with. I don't know. I don't know. Ed could be bisexual. He could be a gay man who has trained himself to be with women, but because he doesn't seem to enjoy sex with women, from what we understand. And there's that scene with Arnold at the end of act one where he's like, sex with you, I don't think was as pleasurable for me as it was for you. And you're like, what does that mean? And you find out that it was actually so pleasurable for Ed that he would often lose his mind.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yes. And that felt wrong to him.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. He's like. He goes, it's not what I want. Ed wants to always be in control of himself, and he wants to be composed and. And, you know, know what's coming next. And Losing control is not up his alley, so to speak. But thank you for laughing at that one. But you know what I mean, that.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Was an eye roll and a laugh at the same time.

[Matt Copl]

Whatever, whatever. But you know, we see that with people all the time. With people, man, that you coached with with Bub. And you know where I agree with Arnold is sort of, you know, you got the one life and why waste it being polite? Being kind and polite are very different things. Manners are very different. There is so much you can experience by just being happy. And you aren't gonna make someone else happy if you are oppressing yourself.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

That is very true. I do think though that of everybody in the cast. No, that's not true. Probably Alan was the most. But Arnold is the clearest about who he is. I think he's just absolutely the clearest. He knows his identity, what he does with it is something else and who he attracts. But I think that he is just very clear about who he is.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, I would say Alan is very clear about who he is as well.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

But it's one dimensional, whereas Arnold is way more.

[Matt Copl]

Well, we get more time with Arnold for sure. The tragedy of Alan is that Alan wants love as much as anyone else and he's sort of always doomed to be lusted after. We find out, you know, he shows up to New York in the 70s, 14 years old, beautiful, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and basically becomes a hustler overnight. Apparently becomes a high class hustler within like a week, making a lot of money and then turning that into modeling gigs. But he said, you know, it still sucks sometimes to be on a photo shoot and the photographer goes for your crotch and like, you let them because then you get to be on the COVID of Vogue at Milan. And then he goes upstate with Arnold and Ed goes for his crotch. He's like, God damn it.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, it's terrible to be objectified.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, well, yeah, it's. It, it's. It's not great. I will say, even there's this sort of feeling that people who are considered objectively attractive are sort of like statues, works of art, right? And then we objectify them because, you know, they're not, they're not real. They don't have real emotions because look how beautiful they are. I'm just a lonely muggle. What is, what does it matter if I ogle them or touch them a little bit? It's like, no, they're still a person who had a childhood and they, you know, have things to do, you know, I don't Know who's like a very beautiful man that's living right now to.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You who's a very beautiful man. Oh, God, it's been a long time. Well, Tom Cruise is still beautiful.

[Matt Copl]

Sure. Okay, you know what?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

You pick one then.

[Matt Copl]

Well, someone who's very much lusted after on social media these days. Kit Connor, the red headed lead of Heartstopper, which I still have to make you watch. He, I mean, first of all, he's 19. He just had a whole to do on social media with his sexuality because people kept pressuring him. But he poops like everybody else, he cries like everybody else. He's capable of hurting someone, of being hurt. He's not this other being. He doesn't just exist in your computer screen or phone. He's a person, as is any person who you might find beautiful. And you know the only people who don't want love or connections are sociopaths.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah.

[Matt Copl]

And we train ourselves to be independent and that's wonderful. But independent just means you can count on yourself. It means you don't necessarily need people to fulfill you, but people can help. The love of another person can help bolster you. It can be a wonderful support system, a safety net for when you fall. And I think that's sort of all Alan wants. And he eventually gets it with Arnold.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Wait a minute.

[Matt Copl]

Yes, dear?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Where'd you come from? This is like so not where you were in those years when you said you weren't a relationship person. It's like wonderful to hear and see. It's poetic.

[Matt Copl]

You're gonna hate it. A lot of this came in the last three months.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Okay, good, because you experienced it.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, kind of still am, but it's. But I understand the, the complications of having those emotions in this moment because who the fuck knows what's gonna happen in the upcoming months. I didn't know bub for very long. I haven't known him for very long. And yet here we stand. And I've said some very eloquent, beautiful things. Alright, mother, let's wrap this shit up.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah.

[Matt Copl]

There was a revival of Torch Song trilogy. First of all, it had a movie version in 1988 starring Harvey Fierstein. Matthew Roderick came back to play Alan this time and Anne Bancroft played the mother.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Was he pretty enough to be Alan?

[Matt Copl]

Yeah, I mean, he's pretty.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

He looked like the same little old man he plays today.

[Matt Copl]

You know, I mean, I think Matthew Roderick was very cute. Up until about 2002 he was.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

But he was loud.

[Matt Copl]

Yes, he's. He's a little more he had more fluffy hair. They made him more. Yeah, I don't know. They made him more kind of like effeminate boy model. But, you know, he's not like all American beautiful in the movie, but he's fine. The movie's not very good to begin with. Harvey Fierstein, as we mentioned earlier, has had a very long career as a writer, book writer mostly. He hasn't had as much success in plays. He had his follow up play to this was Safe Sex, which came after La Cage, which was, you know, so having Torch Song and Cage back to back was, you know, super huge. And then he does this play, Safe Sex, which closes in a week on Broadway.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Oops.

[Matt Copl]

Yeah. And then he doesn't really come back to Broadway until Hairspray. He does movies and tv and after Hairspray he comes back as a book writer. He does Kinky Boots and Newsies and does another musical called Cater Affair, which nobody liked. Did a play called Casa Valentina, which we saw with Mayor Winningham, which was actually pretty solid. And did updates for Finding Girl, which was whatever. Torch Song trilogy had a revival in 2017 starring Michael Urie, which then transferred to Broadway in 2018. They called it Torch Song because they trimmed it down by about an hour and brought it down to two acts. So act one was International Stud and Fugue in a Nursery. Act two was Widows and Children First.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Was it compromised? Was it not as good?

[Matt Copl]

No, it was still very good. It's not just that things were cut. There were some things tweaked, some things added to kind of COVID patches.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Did he do that?

[Matt Copl]

He did it. Yes, he did it. I personally think that the act that suffered the most from it was Fugue in a Nursery, which was, in my opinion, also the weakest of the three to begin with. But.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

So I was right.

[Matt Copl]

Well, I think Widows and children is a 10 out of 10. I think international stud is about nine out of 10. And I think fugue is eight out of 10. So, like, fugue is not bad.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Right?

[Matt Copl]

A play being 8 out of 10 in general, I think is a very successful evening. I just think it's not. It doesn't help that Fugue is slap dash in the middle of a 9 and a 10. If it were 8, 9, 10, it would be a wonderful evening. But I found Fugue in Torch Song to be the weakest. And also, Michael Urie is very pretty and toned and he was a little more clownish than Harvey Fierstein. So it just. It felt a little bit like a trained, wonderful actor putting on someone else's skin, which is what acting is. But I don't know. There was a lack of naturalism about it all. But it was so good. Mercedes Ruhl played the mom, and she was amazing. As I mentioned, it won best play in 1983, opposite plenty by David Hare. And I believe the other ones were as is Night Mother by Marsha Norman and Angels Fall. Lanford Wilson's Angels Fall.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Those are the three that's stiff competition.

[Matt Copl]

Marsha Norman won the Pulitzer for Night Mother. David Harris Plenty is considered his best work. And Lanford Wilson's a great playwright, so that's a good year for plays. Yeah, usually. Mama, we started playing a game at the end of this that I'm not gonna ask you to play because I wouldn't expect you to know this. So I'm gonna do this. It's two, and they're both basically six degrees of Kevin Bacon. But first is called who Lives, who Dies? Jeanine Tesori. The other one is called Six Degrees of Sally Murphy. So with Torch Song Trilogy, and we're gonna stick with the Broadway company, I'm allowed to do Six Degrees of Jeanine Tesori and then Six Degrees of Sally Murphy. And I can only stick to original companies, but I can also include production teams. So the original Torch Song trilogy starred and was written by Harvey Fierstein. Harvey Fierstein. You know what? I take that back. I'm going to say Matthew Broderick was in the Off Broadway production, and it's recorded at Lincoln Center Library. Matthew Broderick did the revival of how to Succeed in Business without really trying in 1995 with vocal and dance arrangements by Janine Tesori.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

That wasn't even 6 degrees.

[Matt Copl]

It wasn't.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

It was 2.

[Matt Copl]

Sally Murphy. Harvey Fierstein replaced Alfred Molina in that Fiddler on the roof revival in 2004. And who is Seidel? Sally Murphy.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Oh, my goodness.

[Matt Copl]

That's not even six. So I look forward to seeing how I keep making this work for every future episode.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

It's sort of like your version of Wordle, right?

[Matt Copl]

Kinda. Yeah. I don't know. I just keep on wanting to make Sally Murphy a huge star. And if I say her name enough times, she will be. We got to get that bitch back to Broadway and doing her soprano voice again. We close out every show with a Broadway diva. There are no big Broadway female Broadway singers in Torch Song Trilogy or who are in Torch Song. So I'm trying to think who could be connected to this. I don't know who is like a big torch song singer.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

The one that we saw was not at all.

[Matt Copl]

You know what we're gonna do?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

What?

[Matt Copl]

So I was thinking, like, Helen Morgan with Bill from Showboat, but I don't know if there's a professional recording of Helen Morgan. What we're gonna do is we're gonna do Lonette McKee singing Bill, one of the great musical theater torch songs with her smoky, smoky voice. And Lonette McKee would have been a great torch song singer and torch song trilogy back in the 80s. So that's it. Join us next week for I don't know what, because we're doing this whole thing out of order. That's it. Thank you so much for listening. Everybody say, bye, Mama.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Bye, Mama.

[Matt Copl]

Is there any place you want people to find you? Online, social media, anything like that?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

No, just. I mean, you write. I do write. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Danny Tickton Koplik. You can.

[Matt Copl]

Would you accept a Facebook from someone?

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

Yeah, sure. Okay, yeah, same. And if you want to look at my website, you know, for other stuff, it's DTKResources.com.

[Matt Copl]

Hallelujah. You can find me on Instagram at Matt Koplik. Usual spelling. If you like the podcast, give us a nice up thumbs five star rating. We're legit now. Thank you, Broadway Podcast Network. And yeah, we'll see you next week for Take It Away, Lonette. Bye. His form and face, his manly grace are not the kind that you would find in a statue. And I can't explain, it's surely not.

[Danny Tickton Koplik]

His brain that made.