Bingo: Favorite. One of my favorite movies of all time is Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy. I have read the play and loved it too; this is a favorite reread.
I moved to San Francisco from New York in 1990 when I was 21 years old. One of my first friends made me dinner one night and showed me his favorite movie, Torch Song Trilogy. It was love at first watch for me. It was so funny and heartbreaking and real. The written play is no different.
Torch Song Trilogy is three short plays linked together. They feature Arnold, a gay man and drag queen in his mid twenties. In the first play, Arnold has a fantastic monologue about love and gay life. It’s funny and poignant (highly recommend finding it on You Tube as the opening scene of the movie). The plot revolves mostly around Arnold and his lover Ed, who is bisexual. While Ed loves Arnold, he ultimately chooses to be with a woman named Laurel.
In the second play, Laurel and Ed, on Laurel’s wishes, invite Arnold and his new boyfriend Alan, a young model who used to work as a hustler, to their house upstate. Laurel knows about Arnold and Ed’s past relationship and remarks how sophisticated it is to have her husband’s former lover over with his new lover. The weekend unfolds with many conversations, one in which Arnold confesses he doesn’t love Alan (though Alan loves him). The weekend culminates in Ed seducing Alan. The truth eventually comes out, but in the end both couples recommit to each other.
In the final play, it is five years after play two. Arnold is fostering a gay youth named David, hoping to eventually adopt him. Ed is staying on the couch, having left his wife. Alan, whom Arnold did fall in love with, has died. The scene mostly revolves around Arnold’s fight with his mother, who has come to visit. She loves her son, but struggles to accept he’s gay. They have the most cathartic, glorious fight over Arnold’s life, grief, and miscommunication. The movie replicates the scene almost word for word and it’s brilliant—another one to look up on YouTube.
Torch Song Trilogy is a hilarious, touching play that shines a spotlight on love, gay life, and tragedy—just like a torch song sung in a smoky club.