Book Review: *Behind the Mask … No More* by Byron Nease

Behind the Mask … No More by Byron Nease
Paperback: 180 pages
Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (November 10, 2008)
ISBN-13: 978-1419655296

Back-of-the-book blurb: Long before Byron Nease donned the mask to play the Phantom, he had learned to show the world one face while concealing another. On stage and off, his life has been about what it means to be a Leading Man. That role has meant constant re-invention, often in the face of adversity. An inspiring story of survival and personal, perpetual full-throttle re-invention, Nease’s life holds lessons and encouragement for all who tackle life’s challenges.  The grief, hope love and resilience in his life and the quest for love and meaning in which Nease seems to make him not so much a leading man, but every man.

She is Too Fond of Books’ review: One of J’s favorite movie lines is this one, from Repo Man:

there’s this, like, lattice o’ coincidence that lays on top o’ everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you’re thinkin’ about a plate o’ shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, “plate,” or “shrimp,” or “plate o’ shrimp” out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin’ for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

Why do I bring it up?  Because I keep getting tangled up in that lattice of coincidence; just last week, after reading Beg, Borrow, Steal, I learned the definitive differences between autobiography and memoir.  I realized that I am a huge fan of personal memoir, which covers a specific period or incident in a person’s life.  Not such a huge fan of autobiography, which tends to rehash a life from beginning to the current day.  Unfortunately, I learned this too late, as I had already committed to reading and reviewing Behind the Mask … No More, which reads to me like an autobiography.

Aside from covering his experience in the theater, Nease writes about much more personal items, from boyhood on.  These include discussions of dysfunction and abuse in his family, personal love and loss, the struggle in caring for aging family member, and coping with being HIV-positive.  This is a very full plate.

Nease played both Raoul and the Phantom in various large productions of The Phantom of the Opera, and he makes a case for comparing his off-stage life to those two roles, the hero vs. the monster.  His first performances were at the Pantages Theatre in Toronto, where J and I saw the show in the winter of 93/94.  I thought I’d look up the Playbill, thinking it would be cool if I could tell you I had seen Nease perform.  I couldn’t put my hands on it, so I’m offering up a Nathan Lane / Matthew Broderick combo instead:

Nease does bare a lot in this very personal story.  I admire him for opening up and showing a very vulnerable person underneath the mask.  I believe that Behind the Mask helped him come to terms with much of what has happened in his life;  I found the passages about his relationship with his late sister, Joan, especially touching.  Die-hard fans of the stage, or others with a connection to his story of survival  may enjoy the book more than I.