The Paris Letter (2005)

Jon Robin Baitz's melancholy new Off Broadway play, The Paris Letter, about the soul-killing consequences of denying one's homosexual nature — even in the noble name of family values — is itself a kind of missive. The ardently articulate, restlessly Jewish author of The Substance of Fire attempts, with mixed success, to fit a fat, rambling notebook full of ideas about desire, artistic expression, money, power, and fathers (i.e., the playwright's classic themes) into a kind of overstuffed aerogram, folded up between the 1960s and post-9/11 now. John Glover and quintessential Baitz man Ron Rifkin star, beautifully, as old friends Anton and Sandy who were once youthful lovers before Sandy got ''cured.'' (212-719-1300) B