"Next Fall" at the Jungle Theater

Next Fall, featuring Neal Skoy and Garry Geiken as the two central
characters -- Luke, an actor; and Adam, a substitute teacher -- is hard to set into a
genre. The play, making its Minneapolis-area debut, runs at The Jungle Theater
through mid-May.
The play is set in the present, but through a series of vignettes allows its
audience to gaze into the relationship between Luke and Adam over the past five
years. In these flashbacks, the audience feels the tension as both men attempt to
navigate in their relationship. Christian Luke struggles with Adams atheism, while
Adam struggles with Lukes refusal to tell his parents hes gay, thereby keeping his
relationship with Adam a secret.
Director Joel Sass said in an interview with The Star Tribune about the play,
It acknowledges that to be human is to be complicated.
In the present, we find that Lukes two worlds -- his gay life with Adam, and
his closeted life with his parents -- intertwine when he finds himself in a coma after
being hit by a car. Next Fall, however, shouldnt be explicitly labeled a drama, as
the serious moments are cushioned by humor.
In the first scene, we meet Lukes birth mother, who refers to herself as the
lung lady. With a Southern accent, actress Maggie Bearmon Pistner plays the
character of Arlene, a loud-eccentric divorcee opposite Stephen Yoakam, who plays
strong-willed and hot-headed patriarch, Butch.

Its unclear whether the parents have any suspicion about their sons
sexuality. In one humorous flashback, Butch pays his son a surprise visit and
unknowingly runs into boyfriend Adam.
Having given his son notice of his plane landing, Luke is quick to de-gay the
apartment. Luke scurries to throw magazines with celebrities pronouncing, Im
Gay! on the cover, photos, books, a stuffed Teletubbie, and other items into a closet
with a rainbow banner and a pink boa.
When Butch finally arrives, the audience is closely following Lukes struggle
to put himself back in the same closet with all the other gay things, when suddenly
Luke accidently refers to Adam as babe. The audience let out a simultaneous gasp.
The show gets its name from Luke, who tells Adam that hell come out to his
parents Next Fall. One of the shows themes is the notion that people shouldnt
wait and leave things off.
As one of the first lines from the show says, One Minute you are doing the
crossword puzzle, and the next minute you are here.
The show also asks its audience to question what they believe and make up
their own mind on whether they should believe in God or not. The problem is that in
the end, it seems as if the play and its characters make up our minds for us.