WHERE MEN ARE EMPTY OVERCOATS, 6 Players Productions, at the Theatre Building. Likable but lame, Eric Pfeffinger’s forced comedy, produced by a troupe from Bloomington, Indiana, depicts with thudding predictability a gay man’s coming out to his repressed Cincinnati family. Right from the clumsy start this stiff script lurches into sitcom mode, each character defined by two quirks only (dad is a right-wing foot fetishist, while the constantly embarrassed mom is a secret sybarite). When young George announces at Thanksgiving that he’s gay, the parents go into biblical denial, sending the hapless lad to a “Gay No More” clinic run by–who else?–a closet case. George’s African-American roommate-lover, brought home for shock effect, turns out to be a promiscuous user. Finally, father and son are brought together when dad shares an endless, pointless anecdote.
