Gay cowboy and televangelist showdown in student's thesis

Growing up on a ranch in the middle of rural Texas, it's not surprising that I was raised on Westerns. John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood — if there was any trace of religion in my upbringing, these were the gods. Thinking back, I realize that this was probably my father's not-so-subtle attempt to try and instill some kind of hearty all-American masculine values in me. After all, Western movie heroes are all about this ideal of rugged manliness, right?

Leave it to Noah Haidle '01 to toy with convention.

Haidle's latest play and creative thesis, "Spaghetti Western," currently a finalist in the Eugene O'Neill Playwright's Contest, will premiere at the Matthews Acting Studio tonight under the direction of Tomoko Minami '01 — and it's guaranteed to be unlike anything you've ever seen.

"I think it's a love story," Haidle explained. But this is not your average cowboy-rides-off-in-the-sunset-with-his-best-gal type of romance. Haidle adds, "It's a guy who loves a costar who happens to be straight, but he's gay, and that's it."

Yes, he said gay cowboys. "Spaghetti Western" is the story of Vance LaVon (Matthieu Boyd '03), one of the greatest Western villains of his day, whose affections fall more toward his cowboy sidekicks than his leading ladies. On the set of a B-western filmed in Italy, he falls in love with his male costar Lynn Bardot (Charlie Hewson '04), who unfortunately for Vance, is married to Vicky (Erin Gilley '02), a somewhat neurotic religious zealot, and has a son, Dean, who grows up to become a vitriolic televangelist with a homophobic agenda.

Act I is a rip-roaring ride that takes you from Italian movie sets to glitzy Hollywood parties thrown by the sleazy producer Jimmy Feingold (Doug Schachtel '01), to Vance's lavish poolside champagne brunches catered by Fingers (Kevin Simmons '03), Vance's scantily clad butler, and even into dirty back street porn theaters, where we meet Donovan (John Portlock '01), the masturbating, Adonis-like hustler with a heart of gold.

By Act II, 25 years have passed, and death, crime, heartbreak and fire-and-brimstone religion converge in a surprising showdown, not at the O-K Corral, but at the Happy Trails Naturist Ranch, where Vicky, Dean and Vance come together, in the words of Minami, "to confront, to interpret and to revise the past."

For Haidle, writing "Spaghetti Western" was his own galloping ride into the sunset of an exemplary Princeton theatrical career, which has included "Goldfish Memories," produced at Theatre~Intime as part of the 1999 Student Playwright's Festival, and "Women and Criminals," another Eugene O'Neill Finalist, under the auspices of the Program in Theater and Dance. "Spaghetti Western" is Haidle's first full-length play, and the history of its creation could make its own western saga.

"This summer, I biked across the country and thought I was writing it then. One night, we were out in Montana wearing cowboy hats and rolling cigarettes, and I just started plotting it out in my head," Haidle recalled. "I thought all I had to do was write it. So I came back, sat down to write it and none of it happened, because it just wasn't fun that way. For me, it's not fun unless you're going moment to moment. So I just threw the plot out and went with it," he said.

But gay cowboys?

"I didn't go into it thinking I wanted to write about gay cowboys," Haidle confessed. "All of a sudden, I just pictured [Vance and Dean] in a room, they'd just finished filming their scene and all of a sudden, one of them kissed the other. That was where it went. I didn't try to write a gay play — it just happened that way."

This element of constant surprise is where the play draws its greatest energy. But amid all of it's rollicking chaos, Minami manages to find in the play themes to weave all of the elements together into a production that is sure to be as powerful as it is comical.

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"The whole play is about desire, but also about iconography—an ideal of being," Minami explained. "All the characters want something — to 'make it,' to live that American dream that is exemplified in American icons like the movie star, or even the cowboy. There's that myth of the American West — the ideal of Eden that everyone wants to attain."

For Minami, a veteran director of the Princeton stage, working with a "live playwright" has presented unforeseen obstacles but has also provided its own sense of creative reward as well.

"The design element has been the most challenging for me, but definitely the most fulfilling. Other plays you might direct have already been produced and have history and you can research what's worked and what hasn't worked. I can't for this play — there's no precedent. You feel like you have one shot to find what works," she said.

This weekend and next, Minami and Haidle get that one shot, and with a huge budget and a team of experienced professional designers, they seem to be right on target. Gay or straight, man or woman, cowboy or Indian, "Spaghetti Western" is sure to be a crowd-pleaser for all types.

"Spaghetti Western" runs Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m, in Matthews Acting Studio, 185 Nassau Street.