Stephen Spinella, Jeorge Bennett Watson (Photo: Maria Baranova)
Jerome
By Julia Polinsky on June 8, 2026
A heartbreakingly excellent performance from Stephen Spinella and heavily timely subject matter infuse Jerome, John J. Caswell, Jr.’s new play now at Playwrights Horizons. It’s June; Pride Month is here, and LGBTQ-forward theater is everywhere. But Jerome can’t seem to make up its mind whether it’s a love story, a soap opera, a comedy, a tragedy, an AIDS history, a ghost story, a mystical adventure, or a confusing combination of them all.
I wish Caswell had made a clearer choice, because gay couple Con (Spinella) and Doane, his partner (Jeorge Bennett Watson), are appealing as hell. They’ve been together long enough – 28 years and planning a 30th anniversary — to be looking for a little variety in their sex lives and go searching for a man to fill that hole. They banter and joke; they’re affectionate and fun, (Doane’s Nina Simone costume is terrific) and maybe a little scared (costumes from Rodrigo Muñoz).
Jerome takes place in Jerome, AZ, which has a “population” sign with crossouts counting down so low, that it reads, “Ghost Town” at the bottom. Yet, way out there in Yavapai county, with the scorpions, the rocks, the scrub, and the decommissioned mines, Jerome still supports a Northern Arizona Pride Halloween party. We meet Con and Doane at that party, and they meet the young hottie Bruin (Ken Barnett) there. “Young” is a relative thing, though; Bruin later reveals that, hot as he is, he’s fifty.
Jeorge Bennett Watson, Ken Barnett, Stephen Spinella (Photo: Maria Baranova)
Oddly, Bruin-the-one-night-stand ends up staying with Con and Doane. He still acts like a one-night, though; he won’t open up to his partners, not about his history, his previous partners, his late night long distance phone calls to San Francisco (plot point for the young: back in the day, phone companies charged for long distance calls, and the bill was itemized.) It’s hard to believe Con and Doane put up with him, especially when he starts drinking heavily and behaving like an idiot.
A lot in Jerome is hard to believe, but chiefly that Bruin, who is deeply freaked out by elder illness and mortality, would stay in this relationship. It’s also hardly believable that three gay men in the early 1990s don’t ever mention the word AIDS. A dream sequence in Act 2, followed by a fishing expedition where Con and Doane fish for Bruin’s truth as much as anything, muddies the waters of belief even more.
Even harder to believe: that a director as experienced as Dustin Wills would leave a stage empty of actors for a large chunk of Act 1 – yes, we hear the three men having sex through an open door upstage, but we see an empty stage for a long scene. That’s risky. Theater is people, in motion, with emotion.
Stephen Spinella, Ken Barnett, Jeorge Bennett Watson (Photo: Maria Baranova)
The stage often feels empty (scenic design also from Wills), even if it isn’t; its black rock walls absorb light (lighting design from Barbara Samuels), whether that light comes from the year-round Christmas tree with its holiday-appropriate decorations and creepy/significant/menacing light flickers, the one window with its blind always drawn, the entry/kitchen area upstage that has the only real light until the end of the play, set in Italy. Ok, I get it: they live in a cave, just like bears; in case you missed the connection, Con is wearing a bear costume at Halloween; Bruin’s name means “bear.” Cave? Plato? Reality vs illusion?
If Jerome were a deeply felt story about illness, mortality, and love, that would be enough. If it were an AIDS memoir, that would be enough. If it were a mystical dream sequence, that would be… well, not enough. If it were three men examining their lives, that would be enough. If it arguably ends in the afterlife (they speak of being in heaven; they’re all wearing white), that would be enough. Jerome is all of the above, and it’s just too much.
At Playwrights Horizons
416 West 42nd St.
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes, one intermission
Through June 21, 2026
