Video projections are part of the action in James T. Lane’s Triple Threat.
“Triple threat” has a double meaning for Broadway veteran James T. Lane. As a performer who can sing, dance and act, he is a triple threat in theater parlance. But, as he acknowledges in his solo autobiographical play of the same name, he has also faced a triple threat of challenges in his life: Black, gay, addict.
Lane’s struggle with drug addiction is the main subject matter of his 80-minute show, Triple Threat, though it follows him from eager first-grader in dance class right up to today, a recent Billy Flynn in Chicago whose other Broadway credits include The Scottsboro Boys and Richie in the revival of A Chorus Line.
Lane battled substance abuse from 2000 to 2004, but has had many musical theater roles on Broadway, tours and regionally since then.
His career was already underway when experimenting with ecstasy at nightclubs escalated into a crack habit that eventually cost him his job on the Cinderella tour with Eartha Kitt (one of the 15 or so different people whom Lane voices in his play) and landed him in jail. Before getting clean four years later, he stole from his mother and a girlfriend, had a lot of anonymous and semi-hostile sex in bathhouses, and witnessed an acquaintance overdosing.
Recovery brought Lane clarity about several issues other than addiction that had tormented him, from childhood sexual abuse to racist treatment by casting directors. “Growing up without a father did not make me do drugs. Sexual abuse did not make me gay. Being born with dark skin did not make me hate it—your opinion mattered more than my own opinion of me,” he proclaims. With those breakthroughs late in Triple Threat, Lane offers one of the most stirring epiphanies seen on stage in a while.
It helps that he’s got the audience on his side from the start, when he reenacts his arrival at an audition and sings and dances to “On Broadway.” Lane will return to that audition throughout the play, putting in the mouth of this one casting director the typical feedback a Black performer hears: condescending praise for being “so prepared, so articulate,” a frame of reference for how Black people speak that’s either Kevin Hart or Martin Luther King, a request to repeat the Hamlet monologue but “loosen up a bit” and do it more “homeboy.”
“Lane’s play goes places that most autobiographical solo shows—even the many about coming out or surviving a difficult childhood—do not.”
These audition episodes are intercut with Lane’s chronological accounting of his life. He skips over years and experiences and rarely goes into extensive detail about anything, sometimes moving on to a new incident or conversation with no segue. This can make the piece feel choppy until you settle into Lane’s impressionistic rhythm. And his quick-paced, unadorned storytelling creates some cheerful moments of surprise for the audience, as with this bit about going to college: “Carnegie Mellon, full ride! And [I] left. Penn State, full ride. That didn’t feel right either. One Friday I got my butt on a bus to New York City. On Monday I came back with a job.”
Much of Triple Threat is rougher going than that, however, with frank replays of Lane’s sexual encounters and his interactions with dealers, hustlers and other addicts. A descent into addiction may seem like well-worn territory for showbiz bios, but those usually come from Hollywood actors. It’s startling intimate to hear such a story from a theater performer, who’s on the stage just a few feet away. And Lane’s play goes places that most autobiographical solo shows—even the many about coming out or surviving a difficult childhood—do not. He forges a bond with his audience through his openness and amiability, yet resists sentimentality and the cliché of presenting himself as a cautionary tale.
Two of Lane’s “triple threat” talents: dancing and acting (as a flight attendant in a video clip). Photographs by Jeremy Daniel.
Triple Threat’s scenery includes several large panels that are used as screens both for simple projections, like the names Gregg Burge, Dick Van Dyke and Ben Vereen—Lane’s three biggest influences as a dancer—and for videos in which Lane briefly portrays another character (such as the courtroom judge), offers a primer on such topics as fetish and making a crack pipe, or gives us a close-up of a particular expression or behavior of his.
The show concludes with a montage of stills from Lane’s career highlights (all post-recovery) while “Philadelphia Freedom,” a nod to his hometown, plays. Lane has already exited, though it would be better if he remained on stage, so the audience—endeared to him as he bravely shared—could rejoice with him present. Triple Threat may focus on Lane’s addiction nightmare, but he reveals enough about other parts of his life for theatergoers to be moved by his journey as an African American artist, as a gay man, as a survivor of abuse and poverty—and to think about the relevant issues he raises.
Triple Threat runs through July 30 at Theatre Row (410 W. 42nd St.), with performances at 7 p.m. Thursday through Monday; triplethreatshow.com.
Director and Choreographer: Kenny Ingram
Sets: Teresa L. Williams
Lighting: Emmanuel Delgado
Sound: DJ Potts
Projections and Video: Tij D’Oyen
