Take Me Out

Take Me Out
Written by Richard Greenberg
Directed by Scott Ellis
Helen Hayes Theatre/2NDSTAGE
March 30, 2022
Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.

This play had everything going for it!  I had seen the original cast 20 earlier but the play remained as relevant – if not more relevant today.  The play has a nice organized plot with sharp character conflicts leading to a very satisfying climax.  This play also had a highly complex masculinity.  In fact, the play became a bit of a textbook on on being a man as it explored a most masculine, successful baseball player owning his homosexuality and seeing how it played through the various dynamics of his teammates and the sacred locker room. 

YONDR Pouches

To see Take Me Out – is to meet the Yondr pouches (which I’d never heard of). Basically, it’s a thick case locker for your phone that you keep with you. The phone is locked up and inaccessible to you for the duration of your time in the theater, however is still on your person.   I asked why this rather extreme and time intensive solution to having cell phones going off during the production – then I was told that that was only a side benefit.  The reason that they are doing it in this show is because the actors in their contract wanted it to be impossible for the audience to take pictures of them especially since they are nude a good portion of the play.  Makes sense!  But, boy was it funny to watch the audience do without cell phones waiting for the curtain.  That Playbill program never got read as much as it got read at Take Me Out.  As soon as the intermission came you could see how desperately they wanted to spend time with their cell phone.  Their texting thumbs had nothing to do.  Then, right after the curtain call, they raced to get their phones removed from the security pockets. Never has a reunion meant so much.