LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! (1997). Stage director Joe Mantello's adaptation of Terrence McNally's Tony-winning play has the original cast (except for Seinfeld's Jason Alexander in the Nathan Lane role). But it soaps up like a sentimental episode of The Real World in which all the housemates are gay. The guests who gather for three weekends at the home of a bland choreographer (Stephen Bogardus) and his blind lover (Justin Kirk) include a wise-acre twinkle-toes living with AIDS (Alexander), a longtime couple (Stephen Spinella and John Benjamin Hickey), a misanthropic Brit (John Glover), and an arrogant Latino dancer (Randy Becker). Later, the group is brightened by the Brit's tenderhearted twin (Glover in ridiculous Patty Duke mode), who's also fighting AIDS. Mantello, however, doesn't shed his theatrical roots as easily as his characters shed their clothes. The result is two hours of stagy, self-conscious "Moments" served up either sun-dappled or moonlit, and cut with the occasional shot of melodrama. Although the adaptation delivers on its title's exclamatory promises, it unfortunately also becomes

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Jane Pickens