Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Ugly and humdrum: Brokeback Mountain, at @sohoplace, reviewed

Plus: see one of the finest comedians on the English stage at the Criterion

Gay shepherds: Mike Faist (Jack) and Lucas Hedges (Ennis) in Brokeback Mountain. Credit: Manuel Harlan  
issue 27 May 2023

Brokeback Mountain, a play with music, opens in a scruffy bedroom where a snowy-haired tramp finds a lumberjack’s shirt and places it over his nose. Then he inhales. Who is this elderly vagrant? And why is he absorbing the scent of an abandoned garment? Two hours later, at the play’s close, we finally learn that the old man, Ennis, is sniffing a shirt that once belonged to Jack Twist who became his lover while they worked as shepherds in Wyoming.

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