The Temperamentals

Jon Marans’s touching gay biodrama, directed by Jonathan Silverstein, is like a more temperate The Normal Heart, and makes a strong case for the quiet radicalism and messy courage of the Mattachine Society, a seminal gay-rights group in the 1950s. The thoughtful, wary Thomas Jay Ryan plays the communist organizer Harry Hay; the first-rate Michael Urie is his lover, Rudi Gernreich. The evolving central relationship gives the play’s politics an affecting personal dimension and helps make The Temperamentals much more than a tantrum.—Adam Feldman