All That Glitters

Can't Buy Me Love... Or Can You?

by Curt Holman

Creative Loafing

Valhalla focuses on beauty as its own reward, whether in the form of an architectural wonder, an attractive body or a pink chenille bedspread. The relentlessly quippy playwright of such hits as I Hate Hamlet and Jeffrey, Rudnick reveals deeper ambitions in Valhalla. The play examines the fascination of many gay men with aesthetic beauty, a lifelong obsession for both Bavaria's Ludwig (Topher Payne) in the 19th century and Texas' James Avery (Matt Felten) in the 1930s and '40s. Both have consuming needs for beauty – in people and objects – even as children. In his first scene, James shoplifts a crystal swan as a kleptomaniacal 10-year-old, saying only, "I needed it."
Payne offers a droll and sympathetic portrait of Ludwig, a royal sissy who moons over Wagnerian opera, recoils at ugly servants and remains oblivious to political realities. The Ludwig track offers hilarious, Woody Allen-esque farce, and Jane Kroessing's costumes convey Ludwig's world on a shoestring budget. The James Avery storyline proves more difficult. As a young man, James pursues his desires so directly that he's almost sociopathic. He develops a romantic triangle with a handsome young jock (Greg Morris) and the high school beauty queen (Kate Graham). Graham's amusing role speaks of the responsibility and entitlement of the extremely good-looking: "Inner beauty is tricky because you can't prove it."
Valhalla commits to some weak jokes and peculiar detours under Peter Hardy's direction, including a World War II musical number, "Soldiers Need Seamen," that, despite Felten's musical chops, belongs in a farce about gays in the military. The more Ludwig and James seek transcendence, however, the more intriguing the play becomes. James pursues seemingly unattainable love while Ludwig all but bankrupts his country, putting his throne at risk to build such structures as Neuschwanstein Castle, the model for Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland. In effect, both men want to live in castles in the air, but realities of their times bring them crashing to Earth to suffer fates as brutal as Shylock's.
Valhalla depicts conflicts with the materialistic world at a time when such definitions are becoming more ambiguous. In the 21st century, we live in an increasingly paperless economy, and goods such as music and other forms of entertainment exist in cyberspace, not on our shelves. I'm not sure if that makes prized ephemera more or less valuable, but shows as thought-provoking as Valhalla would be cheap at twice the price.