by Laura Bloom Farber

The Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, by Jane Chambers, now playing at the Bent Theatre, is a lovely period piece written in and also taking place in 1974.  It concerns seven women spending their summer in a lesbian beach resort community on the north shore of Long Island.

While out fishing, Lil, the central character beautifully portrayed by Yo Younger, is approached by Eva, well played by Christine Tringali Nunes, an attractive woman who has just left her conventional heterosexual marriage.  Eva has rented a cottage at Bluefish Cove, unaware that it is a lesbian community.  Lil, unaware that Eva is straight, invites her to a party, resulting in a scene of comic misunderstandings.  Eventually, Lil and Eva fall in love.  Although the other women know that she has been treated for cancer, Lil conceals her condition from Eva.

The remaining cast consists of Valerie McClure as Annie, a sculptor and Lil’s oldest and closest friend; Dana Adkins as Rae, Annie’s partner; Deborah Harmon as feminist author Kitty; Norma Marcus as Rita, Kitty’s secretary and lover; Lin Phillippi as Sue, an independently wealthy woman; and Alana Fayth as Donna, Sue’s gold-digging and serially unfaithful lover.  All give excellent, nuanced performances.

Jane Chambers wrote The Last Summer at Bluefish Cove in 1974 and it is of its time.  Kitty, the popular feminist author, expresses abject terror of being outed as a lesbian.  If the play took place in the present, I suspect that Kitty would have already outed herself.  This is not to say that in 2023 lesbians experience universal acceptance in society at large, but there certainly are many role models today who proudly proclaim who they are.

The Last Summer at Bluefish Cove will run through November 4th with performances on Thursday, November 2 and Friday, November 3 at 7:00 p.m. and on Saturday, November 4 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.  All performances are at 7:00 p.m. except for Sundays, when they take place at 2 p.m. Performances are at the Palm Springs Cultural Center (the Camelot Theaters), 2300 East Baristo Road, Palm Springs, CA 92262 (across Baristo Road from Palm Springs High School). Tickets are $40.00 plus a service fee. Purchase tickets at the theatre’s web site, www.thebent.org.

The Bent, which is the Coachella Valley’s only theatre company primarily geared to the interests of the LGBTQ+ community, is a 501(c)(3) organization. Tax-deductible donations may be made online at the web site, or by check to The Bent, c/o 101 Santa Paula St., Palm Springs, CA 92264.

The rest of the offerings during the Bent’s 2023-24 season are:

It’s Only a Play, by Terrance McNally, directed By Larry Lafond (Nov. 24-Dec. 10). A deliciously hilarious comedy. A wealthy, naive, first-time Broadway producer, Julia Budder, is throwing an amazingly star-studded party in her luxurious Manhattan home. An eccentric cluster of hysterical characters huddle for various reasons in Julia’s bedroom, while waiting for the opening night reviews to come in. There’s a pill-popping leading lady, a TV actor that turned down a role in the play and is secretly hoping it gets panned, a very anxious playwright, a critic who wished he was a playwright, and a director who is begging for someone to be brave enough to finally tell him that his pretentious concepts are full of crap.

The New Century, by Paul Rudnick, directed By Stan Zimmerman (February 9-18, 2024). A funny and outrageous comedy that raises questions that aren’t easily answered. Helene Nadler from Long Island, a Jewish mother who has weathered the uniquely varied coming outs of all three of her children (we get to meet her leather slave son); Ellen Diggs, a home-crafts fanatic from Decatur who originally thought the World Trade Center was attacked by people in cheap cotton fabric when she heard they were “muslin” terrorists (but she will tug on your heart when she talks about her late gay son); and Mr. Charles who was run out of Manhattan for being too stereotypically gay and now has a cable access show in Palm Beach where he is billed as “The Gayest Man in the Universe” and his very, very sexy assistant, Shane (who we get to see a WHOLE LOT of) are the delightful characters mixed together for this hysterical night of theater.

The Inheritance (Part One), by Matthew Lopez, directed By Steve Rosenbaum (April 26 - May 12). Decades after the AIDS epidemic, three generations of gay men grapple with the tragedy of their past and what it means for their future. Eric is a New York City lawyer trying to keep his family’s apartment; his boyfriend, Toby is a successful but abrasive writer, living in a state of denial. From there, a web of touching and heartbreaking stories unfold, remembering the dead and calling on the living to keep looking forward. As with Angels In America, this epic story is told in two parts. The Inheritance (Part 2) will be the opening play for The Bent’s 2024-2025 Season.