The Departed: McNally’s Master Class

Terrance McNally taught the world a master class on love. More important than any of his many legacies, are these lessons about love. They were needed when McNally’s work was first being recognized for greatness in the 1960s, and they are still needed today as the world is facing necessary isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic and necessary protest due to the enormity of racial inequality in our nation. In these unprecedented times, McNally’s voice rings out, reminding audiences that love, in all forms, can redeem us.

McNally’s scope itself is remarkable. He was easily able to move between the Broadway brain/blood barrier of drama and musical theatre. Such movement helps to make the argument that, while each certainly has unique characteristics, each is equally as valuable and literary. Some of McNally’s greatest honors show that perfectly, as he won two Tony Awards for Best Play: Love, Valor, Compassion! (1995) and Master Class (1995) and two Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical: Kiss of the Spider Woman (1992) and Ragtime (1996). His greatest musical theatre accomplishments harken back to his earliest works as a political activisit/dramatist, in the 1960s and 1970s, speaking and writing out against the Vietnam War and political oppression. As the global community joins the United States in taking an unprecedented public stand against the systematic racism highlighted by the murder of George Floyd, the theatre loving among us are reminded of the messages in these two outstanding musicals. In Kiss of the Spider Woman, McNally gives audiences two men in a prison cell, one forced there because of his homosexuality, the other because of his political beliefs. The plot simultaneously revolves around the sexual and romantic loves of Molina and Paz, and around Paz’s incarceration and torture for revolutionary actions. The play clearly sympathizes with Paz’s political activism, using Molina as the agent of sympathy and compassion. Molina, the musical’s protagonist in many ways, is also in the role of the audience, who sits in observation, unable to help the suffering Paz. McNally is not afraid to stage the psychological effects of political oppression and torture. Musical underscore does not mitigate that pain. The show is remarkably unafraid to tackle themes little known to the musical theatre world, and does so with grace and candor. McNally makes the political personal, and in doing so, reminds the audience that political acts are not nameless, faceless, and distant. They can be intimate and individual, even as we are all — as we should be — implicated in them, and when we are implicated in them, we want to take action. This is McNally’s master class on political engagement.

Ragtime has a similar political effect; it engenders in the audience a desire to combat racial and social inequity. Based on the E. L. Doctorow novel of the same name, Ragtime, in two hours, confronts the audience with many of the social problems that faced the world a hundred years ago, remarkably still facing the world today. Tateh and Emma Goldman remind the audience of the problems facing immigrant populations. That certainly has not changed. The relationship between Sarah and Coalhouse and its aftermath, especially Coalhouse’s rampage after Sarah’s murder is strangely reminiscent of the protests and riots seen nationwide after George Floyd’s murder. McNally’s adaptation of Doctorow’s text challenges the audience to feel along with these characters and to understand the unimaginable consequences of racism. While the musical resolves into contentment in the wake of great violence and tragedy, it is still able to inspire passion and advocacy for those less privileged in our society. This is McNally’s master class on social engagement around racism and discrimination.

Advocacy is word that is inextricable from McNally’s legacy and most frequently used in relationship to his ability to humanize and bring familiarity to the homosexual community and the AIDS crisis. Many of his best works of drama revolve around gay male relationships and the effects of the AIDS crisis. Lips Together, Teeth Apart tells the story...