Plenty of flesh, not enough mesh

8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. Through May 31. Plus, 5 p.m. May 11 and 25; and 2 p.m. May 18. $16-$27. Note: Contains adult language and nudity. Actor's Express at King Plow Arts Center, 887 W. Marietta St. N.W., Suite J-107, Atlanta. 404-875-1606, 404-607-7469, actors-express.com

Bottom line: An uneven comedy-drama about the coming out of gay culture.

Actor's Express' fondness for male nudity is no secret, but its production of Terrence McNally's new play, "Some Men," must rank at an all-time high for flashes of flesh.

Nearly every actor in the nine-man cast drops trou at least once, and some seem to spend more time naked than clothed. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to wonder if it isn't meant to distract from the disjointed tedium that sometimes plagues the production.

Spanning the decades from 1922 to the present, "Some Men" is a series of vignettes that illustrates the progress gay people have made toward social acceptance. A rich young banker (Louis Gregory) makes love with his Irish chauffeur (Tim Batten) on a dark South Hampton beach before acknowledging they can never share a life together in 1922.

A closeted family man (Doyle Reynolds) flaunts the law to explore his forbidden desires in a hotel tryst in 1968. Middle-aged "show-tune queens" huddle in fear inside a piano bar while the Stonewall riots rage outside in 1969.

The strength of "Some Men" is in the juxtapositions McNally creates between disparate segments of the gay community: young gay activists vs. settled life partners; a man on the verge of coming out vs. an angry closeted colleague; those who are HIV positive vs. those who are not. But there are an awful lot of scenes, and more than a few seem superfluous, making it a challenge to connect the dots. It's as if McNally set out to include every milepost in gay culture. Gays in the military, check. Gays in the Harlem Renaissance, check. And so on.

The production opens and closes with a same-sex wedding in 2007, but it comes across more like a convenient literary device than the significant cultural milestone it is and the thing that the entire play builds toward. At times director Kent Gash struggles to develop the tension in each vignette, and as a result, the emotional pitch sometimes starts too high, too fast, leaving the actors nowhere to go but louder. By contrast, it is the quieter, less showy scenes that pack the most punch.

Some of the more satisfying scenes underscore the gulf between generations. In 1975, a pair of slumming "elder queers" (Don Finney and Tom Thon) discover they're out of their element among the randy young hotties looking for action in a gay bath house. Even more poignant —- and universal —- is a chat room scene where a middle-age lonely heart (Finney at his best) makes a surprising emotional connection with a cruiser (John Benzinger), only to be dumped with the stroke of a computer key for a young trick just looking for sex.

It just goes to show you: Gay rights have come a long way, baby. But human nature remains pretty much the same.