Review: Guilt and Sex Go Hand in Hand in A Guide for the Homesick

Gay man goes to Amsterdam, meets a guy in a bar, asks him back to his room. Tale as old as time, right? But when two Americans get holed up in a hotel in Ken Urban’s scintillating two-hander A Guide for the Homesick, the story becomes about way more than just hanky-panky. Shira Milikowski nimbly directs McKinley Belcher III and Uly Schlesinger in a fast-paced two-hander that boasts a couple of the best performances off-Broadway right now.

Harvard grad Jeremy (Schlesinger) has been in Uganda working for the past year as a medical assistant, and now he’s headed home to Boston. When he misses his flight, he meets Teddy (Belcher), who invites him to his room to down some beers and kill a few hours until the next flight out (Lawrence Moten III’s set makes the hotel bed an important focal point). Teddy, sporting a pec-defining pullover (costumes by David Woolard), misinterprets the situation and makes a pass. Naturally, closeted Jeremy freaks out — at least at first. His intense reaction creates a catalyst for the men to interrogate each other about their sexualities and, as they go deeper into their pasts, to discover what they’ve both done recently that might have led each of them to cause the death of a friend.

Urban explores the guilt, selfishness, and self-deceit plaguing the two Americans as they grapple with the possibility that their questionable past behaviors may actually be drawing them closer together. Are they destined for a cozy apartment in the South End? Probably not. And the unlikely setup has the potential to push our credulity too far and go incredibly wrong. But for 85 minutes, Milikowski peels away the layers of the men’s histories as though she’s directing a thriller. The result is that there’s rarely a moment where we’re not left guessing what’s coming next, and even when we do suspect the truth, it feels like a surprise.

Belcher has returned to the role that he originated for Huntington Theatre Company’s world-premiere production in 2017, and his familiarity with it shows big-time in his confident portrayals of Teddy and Nicholas, Jeremy’s gay friend in Uganda whom he abandoned during a purging of “kuchus” by a local mob. Belcher is razor-sharp in both roles as he changes accents and gestures with remarkable precision and makes us feel real fear for Nicholas’s safety. His transformation is so complete you might find yourself forgetting that he was Teddy only moments before.

Schlesinger does a hell of a job as well. His hypersensitive Jeremy makes us feel for him even as he annoys us with his “I’m not gay” dithering (we’ve known from the moment he stepped through the door). His sex scene with Teddy has all the awkwardness you’d expect from someone who has never done this before, but he creates a completely new manic persona in his portrayal of Ed, Teddy’s straight travel buddy who has a psychotic break before storming off into the night.

There’s a racial tension between Teddy, who is Black, and Jeremy, who is white, that percolates quietly and bubbles up in moments of crisis, like when Jeremy’s white savior complex is exposed. But Belcher and Schlesinger let us watch it simmer throughout as they size each other up with side glances and suspicious questions (“Are you not into Black guys?” Teddy asks defensively).

Abigail Hoke Brady adds to the charged atmosphere with jarring changes in lighting that quickly shift scenes from Amsterdam to Uganda, and from present to past, as the mystery about the men’s pasts and the fates of their friends come into focus. Daniel Kluger’s sound design adds to our feeling that something is about to explode (the roar of an arriving airplane as Teddy touches Jeremy’s hand is especially effective).

Urban has set several of Jeremy’s flashbacks in 2010 Uganda. Homophobia has long existed there, and as recently as this past April, its courts reaffirmed the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act, which puts the lives of LGBTQ people in mortal peril. It is a horrific thread to weave through a story of two men who come from a country that, supposedly, no longer punishes people for loving whomever they want to love. But then again it doesn’t have to when it encourages us to punish ourselves.