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About Southern voice. (Atlanta, Georgia) 1988-20?? | View Entire Issue (March 15, 1988)
COUNTERCULTURE Different Entertaining; Lacks Depth A critic I admire once wrote that he always felt badly when forced to comment adversely on young theater companies, or on plays written from minority points of view. He understood how badly we need them both, and how such companies invariably seem to take the greatest artistic and financial risks despite having the most to lose, including their very existence. I would like to ask the forbearance of readers to consider a mixed response to a production that, weaknesses accounted for, should not be missed. Different takes chances, has its rewards, and is worth our attention. I went to see Different with a high degree of anticipation. The advance press had been promising: SAME'S first musical would be a 21-song musical drama using elements of concert, cabaret and commentary to dramatize key passages in the life of a "gay Everyman." The story would follow Sonny Robinson from his lonely childhood, through his adult satisfactions and disappointments, to his eventual confrontation with AIDS. The lights went down and an ensemble of attractive, high-energy actors/singers/dancers commanded the stage at once. The show itself is constructed in a familiar but pleasingly elliptical style. The plot is built around the lead character,Sonny, and the milieu through which he moves, which serves as material for some of the brightly written and beautifully performed songs we hear. Some of this material is wittily, if superficially, on target: the humiliation certain children feel at being chosen last, if at all, for grade-school recess games; the discomfort of courtship rites played out in a parked car where one couple sits chastely in the front seat while waiting out the steamy goings-on behind them; and the friend who drops by emblazoned with news that he has met someone special who has left his full name and phone number on a matchbook for future reference. Mostly we watch episodes depicting how Sonny lives his life. We follow him on his introduction to gay society and culture by his first visit to a bar (gateway to friends in order to construct gay social interaction outside the bar). And we're at his side when he meets Neal, a sympathetic and courtly bartender (also a frustrated writer) who eventually becomes his lover and housemate. In one of the production's finer moments, we watch them blithely fold clothes from a laundry basket, and sense there's nowhere else in the world they'd rather be. Different has been called "probably the most commercial project yet undertaken" by SAME, and perhaps that's part of the problem with it I found it conventional, so concerned to be generically representational that it somehow becomes neutered. It's also a melodramatic piece of work, especially in Sonny's death scene and in Neal's scenes of grieving (poorly written by Different's authors, Patrick Hutchinson and Dan Pruitt, and badly overacted, respectively, by David Willis and G. Burrow Holmes, neither of whom, when he's not dancing, knows what to do with his hands or how to move with ease onstage). It's also a very WASPy view of gay life. And the result is a thin, distended series of songs and sketches, some brightly written and acted, but without much depth. It simply tells us nothing we don't already know about gays in American society and culture. If the production brings tears from some members of the audience, I'd guess the emotional baggage we all now bring into the theatre cm account of lost loved ernes is more likely the true source of those tears. We only need to be tapped lightly. Any play that now addresses the topic of AIDS, in my view, risks being charged with pandering lest it tread with great care and delicacy; or the courage of an artist, one who is willing to face horror and the mystery of death head-on, and to evoke the holiness of last days when before us lies all the secrets to the universe or extinction everlasting. >In terms of addressing issues such as these, Different simply doesn't exist. But it does have the pleasures afforded by a cast who can sing and dance. Standouts among the good, conviction-filled cast include Buddy Montgomery, whose voice seems to spin gold in the air; G. Scott Suprina, who underplays beautifully a married man who understands perfectly the risks he's taking by following his heart, and who, in his ensemble scenes, moves his wrists, hands, entire body, to witty comic effect; and Doug Lothes, who stops the show and struts away with it in his breast pocket in his matchbook number. Different's lighting and sets were designed by John Williams; the score, an unusually good one, is by Patrick Hutchinson. On The Way Up Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square, by Stan Leventhal, Edward-William Publishing, Austin, Texas, 1988: paperback $8.95. Not quite two decades have passed since the Stonewall Riot of 1969, a convenient starting date for the gay rights movement Even this short time has seen tremendous change in the gay press, which has matured from a stage of newsletters, political tracts, vanity publications, and ephemeral literary journals. In the field of fiction writing, there is already a sense of a second generation, a new crop of names, producing a broader range of stories and novels. Stan Leventhal belongs to this new breed. After some years of journalism, writing on music for the New York Native, he has just published his first novel, Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square. Set in Manhattan, where Leventhal has lived for several years, the book takes as its central metaphor the tangled intersection of streets at the heart of Greenwich Village, where a statue of the Civil War General Philip Sheridan presides over a small park. The confusing geography of this part of the city, the conflux of diverse people, and the relief provided by the few trees—all of this stands for a certain way of life. It is life in the big city, as lived by creative young people, some of whom are gay. A friend of mine, a young play director who holds body and soul together by typing, read the book in one gulp and exclaimed: "This is my life!" As with most first novels, Mountain Climbing draws heavily from the author's own life. But Leventhal has omitted most of his childhood and school days. The time span covered is the past four years, fixing the novel firmly in the 1980's, the age of AIDS and Ronald Reagan. Leventhal has also abandoned A Lesbian Photo Album: The Lives of Seven Lesbian Feminists, by Cathy Cade, Waterwomen Books, 3022 Ashbrook Court, Oakland, California 94601. 1987: paperback $14.95. If you are a Lesbian who also calls herself a Feminist, this glossy "album" containing over 100 captioned photographs and strong text is for you. Cathy Cade has gathered up the friends of her friends and has produced an interesting assemblage of homey snapshots, pithy revelation from the women themselves and intimate photography. If you are a lesbian who does not care whether or not "feminist" follows her name and has enough to do just to keep herself alive, you may be put off by the price of this book and its strictly West Coast orientation. In any case, any woman who has the opportunity to contemplate the faces in the photographs and to savor the various flavors evoked by the women's words will inevitably leave enriched. I thought I knew what it was all about until I sat down with A Lesbian Photo Album. Cade explains: "The photographs in this book are of two kinds: those supplied by the women...showing their lives from childhood to about 1980 and those we made together in 1980 to 1982. The pictures from our growing- up years were selected to tell our individual stories and also to depict the similarities and differences of our backgrounds." Yes, Cade's "album" is indeed diverse, but I cringe at the worn out and weary devise where "one of these" is chosen and then "one of those" - a Mexican woman, a physically- challenged woman, a big woman, a poor woman.... Nevertheless, I cannot deny that these intentional choices make the book as powerful and penetrating as it is. I welcome a straightforward narrative in favor of a non linear series of short episodes. This technique, a bit hand to follow at first, allows him to juggle past and present, and to compare scenes simply by setting them side by side. The effect is like that of a film documentary, where we see real people, close up. What holds the book together is the narrator's voice, consistent throughout. It is plain and unaffected, and popular, in the sense of coming from the people. It is so unobtrusive that it nearly disappears-an achievement for any writer, and a refreshing change from the self-conscious style of earlier gay writers, such as Andrew Holleran and Edmund White. More substantial than his voice, though, is Leventhal's program. He has turned his back on the tradition of gay despair—the hopeless love affair, the hostile family, the sad suicide— and invented a new ideal. He shows us gay men in happy couples, who babysit their friends' children, and who work hard at their careers. They are middle class, but hardly "yuppies". They have learned the value of friendship. This is the keynote of the second generation in gay fiction: the integration of gay life back into the mainstream. The character Amos represents the old way. From fun-loving New Orleans, Amos works as a waiter, cheats on his lover, does too much cocaine, and eventually fades from view. A hazard of dwelling solely in the here and now, of course, is an apparent lack of depth. Leventhal can't understand Amos, nor can he forgive him. Likewise, the death of another character, Lorenzo, is told so abruptly that it seems offhand. Still, Leventhal deserves every chance for success, as does his publisher, Edward- William. The book is handsomely printed and bound, a tangible advance over earlier gay presses. Without question, Leventhal is on to something, and he may well climb to the top of his chosen mountain. the day when Feminist effort culminates in the visual variety among women becoming less of a spectacular issue than the unseen aspects of our minds and hearts. The one distracting feature of A Lesbian Photo Album is the "historical introduction" by Lois R. Helmbold. Cade's introduction, which precedes Helm bold's, is quite effective in providing the impetus necessary to send the reader hungrily into the text. The perspective offered by Helmbold is five pages too long and seems to be yet another elitist indication that the words of "common" women simply could not stand alone without the interjection of a Feminist scholar. Though written well, the impersonal seven-page second introduction adds little to the intention or thrust of the book. Overall, Cathy Cade has a good product The arrangement of the photographs in addition to the skillfully edited interviews of the women are powerful. Cathy Cade has birthed a baby to be proud of. -Terri L.Jewell SAME Presents.... A series of events at Seven Stages Theater March 16th at 8:00 PM DeDe Vogt, in a rare solo appearance, opens for The Angela Motter Band March 22nd&23rd at 8:00PM Politically Incorrect Theater with Doug Lothes and friends. March 26th&27th at 5:30 PM and March 27th -30th at 8:00PM Ships, a love story by Bill Bagwell Tickets $5.00 at the door 584-2104 for info -Terry Francis Death of a Legend Los Angeles - Divine, pictured here in a 1983 performance at The Saint in Atlanta, died in his sleep in Los Angeles on March 7,1988. Introduced as the "filthiest person alive" in the 1972 film Pink Flamingos, Divine, whose real name was Harris Glenn Milstead, most recently starred in Hairspray. The authorities are currently looking into the cause of death, which was temporarily identified as asphyxiation. Photo by Gerald Jones. - Robert Boucheron Picture Ourselves Page 7
