Things That Can Fall

It's said that men in New York City are either married or gay. Libby can't testify to "married," but this fascinating actor starring in the off-Off-Broadway Gothic rock opera she currently stage-manages is definitely the latter. Neil Overcash, amiable and unassuming offstage, becomes the personification of seductive threat in the spotlight as Dracula. Libby can't help falling hard. Another idiot in love is best friend Michelle, obsessed since high school with boyfriend A.P. who is crippled but dishy and never met a woman he didn't like. And fragile Ramon, dying to be a girl, lives only to please abusive partner Reggito who'll probably end up killing him. Disco's a new thing but violent street crime isn't. Neither is jealous rage. AIDS, unheard of, waits in the wings. "Death waltz," a term from a current Springsteen hit, may sound romantic in an arty sense to most bohemian twentysomethings but it terrifies a few. One of these is A.P., maimed in the clinical death he experienced at age nineteen. Unsure now whether he'd rather live or die, at least he knows he can't dance. Danger's not a dramatic plot device but a high wire act everybody performs every day. Many routinely slip and fall into bed with the wrong people. His soulmate Michelle seems surefooted enough in her cowgirl boots, but A.P. can barely walk a block. Ramon and Reggito never look down. And Libby Papalekas, trying to keep up with Neil, is in platform shoes.