Incitation to the Dance at Theatre West

Incitation to the Dance is a sexy, dark gay comedy that will make you laugh, blush, and maybe want to dance.

Malcolm and Asher are a long-term couple. Malcolm is a film historian and professor. Asher is an unemployed dance instructor. They’re dealing with Asher’s depression since losing his job. Malcolm’s delight in teaching his class, “Gunsels and Gay Blades” (a survey of homoerotic coding in Film Noir), exacerbates Asher’s hopelessness. Finn, a determined young man, upends their world with his provocative blend of candid sexuality and menace.

Oh, and they do dance.

The stage is both the landscape of three minds and a choreographed battlefield. Stylized verbal battles escalate to physical confrontations, characters break the fourth wall, Malcolm’s class probes an overwrought 1940s love triangle, while the dances build in intensity and violence.

Michael Van Duzer is the director and playwright.