The Last Sunday in June and Other Plays: Including If Memory Serves and The Twilight of the Golds Paperback May 14, 2004

by Jonathan Tolins

Jonathan Tolins's hilarious and poignant play The Last Sunday in June follows in the tradition of The Boys in the Band and Love! Valour! Compassion! Set in a Greenwich Village apartment, Michael and Tom plan to spend Gay Pride Day contemplating their move to the suburbs. But with the parade happening outside their window, friends drop by, igniting a chain of events that rocks the foundations of their relationship. Also included in this collection are If Memory Serves, a satire of repressed memory and celebrity scandal, and The Twilight of the Golds, the controversial Broadway play about genetics and homosexuality that was the basis for the Showtime film starring Brendan Fraser and Faye Dunaway.

Genres: Plays, LGBT, Drama

Paperback

First published May 14, 2004

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

Joe: "Is this like the second half of a gay play? The part where it turns really dark and annoying and everyone wallows in self-hatred?" p. 59

Tolins began his career with this trio of hot-button issue plays, and has gone on to an illustrious career in television (most recently as a producer/writer for 'The Good Fight'). But sad to say, in revisiting these, they have aged really poorly, and seem simultaneously old hat, didactic and preachy now - plus all of the references are from the late 90's, so it dates the work badly. And the meta elements in the titular play are really inane (see quote).

Not to mention the problematic issues surrounding eugenics in Tolins' best known work, The Twilight of the Golds - for a hilarious time, you can watch the hideous TV version, in which an entirely Gentile cast (including Faye Dunaway, Brendan Fraser, Jennifer Beals) attempts to get their 'Jew-on' portraying the Gold family. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7RTR...

[John Geddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each of the three plays takes a surprising (and somewhat dark turn) that make the plays issue-based. They’re something to talk about, not just to watch. The author denies you a pulled together resolution but instead send you off to talk about it.

[David Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such an odd collection. The first play, "The Last Sunday in June," is by far the best. It is very similar to "The Boys in the Band" but updated for a whole different time period. It works as a dramatic piece and also as a nice little history lesson. The other pieces are not nearly as good. I really disliked the last piece, "If Memory Serves."