Most often, they’re unnecessary, time-consuming, and not actually black. They’re usually bluish, and feature the moving about of set pieces in less than theatrical ways for long enough that I can come up with a number of much more compelling ways the director might have transitioned from one scene to the next. In my own work as a playwright, I’ll allow myself one blackout per ninety minutes, and it better come at a crucial moment: the death of a major character, or a significant shift in plot or theme.
There is a moment n Theatre 167’s new show You Are Now The Owner Of This Suitcase when the stage goes well and truly dark. And when the lights come up again, the audience is treated to one of the most delightful surprises I have ever experienced in a theater.
"If art reflects life, it does so with special mirrors." - Bertholt Brecht
You Are Now The Owner Of This Suitcase (or YANTOOTS) takes place in the enchanted land of Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC. It is in many ways an old fashioned fairy tale, even as it makes mention of the most contemporary of objects and issues, including the very building in which the show is performed. Magic takes public transportation. It arrives in suitcases, sits on park benches, and dwells quite literally in cell phones. Early on, there’s a speech by an electronics store owner (Rajesh Bose) who gives a hilariously over-the-top hard sell of a mobile device. His phones will actually transport you to any nation on earth and enable you to converse in its native tongue. To a cynical New Yorker, it seems at first a send-up of storefront shysters hawking overpriced, sub-par products with outrageous claims. It’s not.
YANTOOTS is creatively mounted in the cafeteria of PS 69. Being assembled in the lunchroom of an elementary school put me and my friends in a playful mood (even if the tiny urinals in the restroom made us feel a little funny). The ripped storybook pages and twinkling lights of the set evoke a decidedly urban fairyland backing into ‘wings’ of upended cafeteria tables. Staging a devised piece in this space speaks to the mission of Theatre 167 to create and promote art for and about the local community. The audience surrounds the action of the play, and actors enter through the impromptu ‘house’ created by sectioned seating. The whole set-up seems microcosmic of the neighborhood around it.
The play is a wild pastiche of styles, sometimes naturalistic, in other moments quite avant-garde. Subtly nuanced performances give over to charmingly garish puppetry. Many scenes combine simple contemporary vernacular with heightened, even poetic dialogue. The fourth wall comes and goes. Somehow, it’s all done with great precision, ease, and speed. The whole thing is remarkably dynamic. I don’t think there’s a moment of stillness in either act.
What makes it all work is a group of highly skilled and absolutely committed actors who seem to really love what they’re doing. Saying of a show that it ‘has heart’ is often code for ‘good-try-A-for-effort’. But in this case, the company’s skill and talent is matched only by it’s passion for the material. Every member of the cast seems completely given to creating something magical and meaningful. They also happen to have some real chops. Don’t think for a second that all the great acting happens in Manhattan. (Aside from blackouts, the other thing I find boring onstage is watching people talk on the phone. But John P. Keller made a truly moving moment of it.)
If you go see YANTOOTS, give yourself enough time to have dinner first. There’s all manner of great food in Jackson Heights. We went with Indian at a neighborhood classic, The Jackson Diner. Don’t let the name fool you, they do a delicious and authentic curry. (At 6:30 there was plenty of room but by the time we left for the show, the place was nearly packed.) I have a thing for Indian sweets so I stopped off at a shop for burfi and patisa and chamchams. Pink coconut chamchams are the perfect intermission snack for this show.
It didn’t occur to me until the train ride home that the one thing you don’t really see depicted on the multicultural platform that is Theatre 167’s stage is racial tension. Yes there are villains in YANTOOTS (Ross DeGraw’s Hector is pretty vile) but racism doesn’t seem to factor into their agendas. Characters of every color, from every continent - yes, even Antarctica - seem to get along just fine here. Of course, it is a fairy tale…
Or is it? The audience at last night’s show was the most diverse crowd I have ever seen at a play. Not a huge crowd, but a very happily mixed one. Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight, old, young. From where I was seated, I could see two families enjoying the show together. One family was Caucasian, the other Indian, and both included kids no older than eight. All were delighted by a work of art that is decidedly optimistic, refreshingly so in our cynical times.
“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.” – Bertholt Brecht
Brecht felt that artists must pay close attention to the possibilities their work promises. He said that the greatest thing that theatre could do was to provide the pleasure of knowing the world could be remade. While the title of Theatre 167’s latest play refers to a mysterious note discovered in a lost valise, ‘You are now the owner of this suitcase’ is actually a very loaded statement. To me, it’s a reminder that we have a responsibility, as both artists and citizens, to shape the world in which we live. Putting something onstage conjures up a potential reality. Audiences may even replicate in the real world what the encounter in art. In YANTOOTS, a Roumanian bruja (it is Jackson Heights) played by Kim Carlson advises recent Equadorian émigré Patricia Becker to take seriously her charge of a lost piece of luggage. To think carefully about how she’ll fill it. It turns out that our baggage touches the lives of others in ways we can hardly imagine.
If YANTOOTS reflects the community that inspires it, it also reminds its residents of the magic that makes urban geography meaningful for its inhabitants. It urges us to cherish our interesting differences even as seek to create a unified whole. Of course we can all get along. Why in the world wouldn’t we want to?
My friends and I walked out into the twinkle and color of bustling Jackson Heights with smiles on our faces. It was one of those great evenings that inspires you to look at New York City with a fresh perspective. And one of my favorite things about YANTOOTS? Kreith and company take us from one part of Jackson Heights to the next by simply whisking in a table, a window, or a couple of chairs, playing the scene even as they set and strike its elements. No blackouts!
Like the neighborhood around it, You Are Now The Owner Of This Suitcase is a work of constantly shifting light, always moving, transforming, reinventing itself. Absolutely delightful.
YANTOOTS has been extended through April 3. Get your tix here.
A few weeks back, following a reading of Doric Wilson’s The West Street Gang, I had a conversation with that pioneering playwright about the chances of seeing his play staged as it had been in 1977, in a bar. Doric felt it highly unlikely. He was of the opinion that the spirit of that production, and of the Caffé Cino scene that begat it, is long gone. Why? One word, he offered, “Greed.”
But Daniel Talbott and his Rising Pheonix Repertory are keeping alive the legacy of Cornelia Street with their ‘Cino Nights’ new plays series at an underground pub on East 7th. Every few weeks on a Sunday night, some of New York’s most talented playwrights and directors present fully realized productions of brand new plays on the Seventh Street Small Stage at Jimmy’s No.43. Enthusiastic audiences are packing the tiny basement space to see new stuff from a roster of artists that includes Adam Symkowicz, Dael Orlandersmith and RPR Artistic Director (and Rattlestick lit manager) Daniel Talbott.
Cino Nights is an all-volunteer affair. Let me clear about what I mean by all-volunteer: I mean everyone, not just playwrights and actors, are mucking in for the love of developing a new piece of theatre. Yes that includes the venue owner. Jimmy’s No.43 has donated their space to RPR for five years now, never asking a dime. Admission remains free of charge. So the only folks who may be profiting from RPR’s new play series are Jimmy’s bar- and waitstaff. (Let me tell you, they are earning every tip). For those who feel, like Doric Wilson, that such things are impossible, I submit the dynamo that is Daniel Talbott.
There is a distinct lack of punctuation in Daniel’s emails. In any other literary-manager- slash-artistic-director, this would be unforgivably grammatically lax. But Talbott just doesn’t have time for commas. He’s too busy actually making shit happen, G-d bless him. Besides, if you’ve ever met Daniel, you already know that every sentence ends with an exclamation point. His enthusiasm is contagious. I imagine it would be hard to refuse him anything, much to the benefit of the playwrights he champions.
Screw the Oscars, I’m seeing theatre.
So last night I was lucky enough to score a seat at Jimmy’s for a new play by the brilliant Lucy Thurber. Thurber’s prize-winning work has been produced at Rattlestick and The Atlantic, among many other cool places. Her Named is a sucker-punch of a one-act, just twenty-five minutes long, simultaneously depicting the sweet ache and emotional violence of almost-but-still-un requited love. A cast of four plays Cora, Emily, and their respective doppelgangers, Cora 2 and Emily 2. These doubles are manifestations of Cora’s lovesickness for Emily. While Cora endures the sweet torture of a chaste snuggle in Emily’s bed, the young women’s twins play out her deepest fears and greatest desires. Unseen by Emily, they fight and fuck on the floor right next to bed, at the audiences feet. It’s a startling and poetic concept that might seem gimmicky in less skilled hands, but Thurber’s writing is so rich, and the play’s performances so wrenching, I bought every bit of it.
Staging something at Jimmy’s 43 presents all kind of challenges, and the artists in the Cino Nights manage it all in less than a week. The size and configuration of the room brings a whole new meaning to the idea of ‘intimate’ theatre. Audience members can hardly help being part of the play. Jenna Worsham’s direction of Named takes full advantage of the room’s close quarters. Our experience of Cora’s pain mirrors her feelings for Emily: we are close enough to touch her, and yet remain invisible. It’s wonderfully uncomfortable and deeply affecting, thanks in no small part to some fantastic actors: Ronete Levenson, Sarah Tolan-Mee, Katie Meister, and Lila Dupree.
Actually, both of the plays I’ve seen at Jimmy’s had some kind of doppelganging going on, something to do with doubles. Characters creating characters. Writers writing about writing.
As ‘twere, a mirror.
In Emily DeVoti’s The Upstart, a young playwright struggles to create a show for Adolph Hitler’s aging Irish sister-in-law (!) based on the latter’s actually published autobiography. (Actually!) In examining the oft-intoxicated Irish actress’ past, the playwright (and, presumably, the playwright) faces the tangle of race and culture that collides and infiltrates her own very contemporary life in today’s Brooklyn. (Julie Kline was extraordinary in the lead. Director Taibi Magar found surprising and innovative ways to use the tiny basement space.) Both Thurber and DeVoti give us close-ups of close-ups in the back room at Jimmy’s. In each case, the writer examines a character who examines herself and, in turn, seems to examine her creator as well.
It’s no wonder, the delightful and insightful ourobouros these ‘wrights hath wrought. Daniel Talbott and Rising Phoenix have given them a lab un which to explore the very nature of what they do. In an age when our best new plays are relegated to the purgatory of ‘development’ and the rest get no better than music-stand readings, Cino Nights provides playmakers the rare opportunity to actually see their work at its most essential. Great actors, off-book, performing to appreciative sold out crowds. No critics, no budget constraints (cause there ain’t no money to begin with). The result: Fully-realized, yet uncorrupted. I could cry.
All this literal and metaphorical self-reflection reminds me of Kathleen Warnock’s delightful short play The Adventures Of… in which an adolescent girl’s obsession with a cheesy old undeniably homoerotic TV superhero program leads to the discovery of her identity as a writer and, presumably, as a lesbian. Or the naïve first-time filmmaker of Micheline Auger’s The Feminism Of A Soft Merlot agreeing to document her own sexual education, and seeming transformation, via porn. Or Nicole Pandolfo’s Love In The Time of Chlamydia, opening later this year, about an aspiring writer dealing with absent dads and premature ejaculators, coming into her sexual own, and surviving to tell the sordid tale on her own terms – in the form of a one-woman show.
These plays each present, in one way or another, the idea of self-reflection in a uniquely theatrical way. Lucy Thurber provides her characters with alternate-universe personae. Emily DeVoti shows us, quite literally, the process of playwriting as it blurs the boundaries of political history and personal identity. Warnock, Auger, and Pandolfo reveal the ways in which sharing one’s personal story carries great consequence, for better or worse. All five question what is socially and sexually ‘normal’. All take a hard look at the politics of desire and the consequences of love.
(There is one more thing the five aforementioned playwrights have in common. Are you listening, Wasserstein committee?)
Still She Dances!.
So take heart, Mr. Wilson. The spirit of the Caffé Cino is alive and well and living on just slightly east of where it all started. As a playwright and a theatre-goer, I’m more than reassured by what Rising Phoenix Repertory is doing at Jimmy’s 43. I’m inspired.
JSB
Hey, if you’d like to pay homage to the source, I'm performing a scene from Doric Wilson’s A Perfect Relationship on Wednesday March 16th at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. It’s a tribute to Doric and his fifty years as a playwright and will feature lots of talent including Charles Busch. Get your tix by calling 212 695 6909.
I turned down another show last night. It made me absolutely sick to do it. I’ve hardly slept, my head hurts, and there is still a knot in my stomach.
It’s not that I didn’t want to do this show. It’s a cool project by an award-winning company. Minimal time commitment too, which is one of the reasons I pursued it in the first place. But, simply put, I can’t afford it.
The sad fact is that I’ve been offered a couple of bartending gigs that conflict with the performance schedule of this show, and I have to go where the money is, however small that sum may be. I didn’t know about the conflict before my audition – there was some discrepancy as to the dates of this show. I also thought it was a paying gig. Yes, it is pathetic state of affairs when an actor can’t afford to act, but there it is. Still, I’ve been trying to find a way to manage it, call the guy back, tell him I was mistaken, and take the role…
No. I can’t afford to work for free. Even with nothing paying lined up, I just can’t. I can’t justify it to my partner, to myself, or to a community of performing artists that deserves a little dignity.
Because that’s the other problem here. On principle, I can’t support a professional theatre production that does not pay its actors.*
Yes I know there’s a recession. Yes I know that most Off-off Broadway productions pay actors very little to absolutely nothing, it’s commonplace. The idea is that we do it for the exposure, the opportunity to be seen by people who will put us in paying work. But let’s be honest, that almost never happens. People who pay actors very rarely see shows for which actors are not being paid. It’s not even a conscious decision on the part of professional producers, directors and agents, it’s simply a matter of affinity. Law of attraction.
So mostly we take these jobs for the love of doing them. I love rehearsal, more than just about anything. I’m always sad when that process ends. The producers and directors of the shows I’ve turned down don’t intend to take advantage of that. It does not, I’m sure, even occur to them that they are getting over on us poor pathetic schmucks willing to work for nothing more than a half-hearted promise, a little dressing room ego-stroking and, of course, the satisfaction of a job well-done.
Just status quo, par for the course: the last consideration and lowest priority in Off-off Broadway theatre is paying actors. That’s just the way it goes.
It’s simply an accepted part of the culture of lower-budget theatre. Why should any one actor, like me for example, think that he should be paid when there are thousands of other actors for whom the notion does not even occur? After all, someone is stepping into the roles I’ve walked away from, and G-d love them for it.
But how did we get here? Why is this okay?
When I was trying desperately (again) to find a way to take this role, I inquired of the director whether this was a paying gig. I had actually assumed it was…
(The audition listing – for which I paid two bucks, for G-d’s sake! – stated that the show would be an AEA showcase and provide a travel stipend. Now, I know, that as a non-union actor I am not entitled to a travel stipend according to Equity rules. I know that most actors just accept this as part of paying one’s proverbial dues until one is invited to pay actual ones. I know, I know…)
…but I was trying to ascertain whether what I earned for this show might be close to what I’d get bartending. Forget that one is lot more work than the other, I’m not talking about fair compensation, I’m talking about getting anything at all. The director’s emailed reply was:
of course it’s not a paying gig are you in or out
I actually felt rather shamed. How dare I? Who do I think I am to ask such a thing? The nerve of me.
In truth, if they – or any of the other productions I’ve said no to – had offered me forty bucks and boxed lunch, I’d have taken it. If any had demonstrated an appreciable effort, I’d have made arrangements. I mean, ten bucks and a backhanded compliment, something, anything, please!
But this isn’t right. Every theatre professional, regardless of union status, should be paid for their work. Period.
So I have to look at this production a bit more closely, and really think about whether I’m even down with it. When they announced the cast – and it was a sudden e-blast, just hours after the auditions, not a private email offering me the role – two thirds of the cast were asterisked as Equity members. It must be a paying gig for them, because I can’t imagine that a professional company would break union rules. The fact that ticket prices are set at twelve dollars more than the maximum allowed for an AEA showcase is likely just an oversight. These are good guys just trying to make some art. And yet there’s something not quite right here.
No, there’s nothing evil about this company or the others I’ve (not) mentioned. They aren’t bad, just typical. And it’s not their fault.
It’s ours. It’s actors that have made the bed in which we now languish. Maybe we couldn’t help it. We are compelled to do this work at any cost. It’s not ambition so much as passion that motivates us. While we sometimes pretend to be ego-driven divas, most of us are actually total doormats. Over time, we’ve simply come to accept that there is no other way. And if you ask producers, most will tell you there isn’t. “How do you expect us to produce this show if we have to pay the actors? We have to pay for space, lights, costumes and scenery. We have to pay the director, the stage manager, the publicist and the props guy. We can’t possibly pay the actors too.” The idea that performers should be satisfied by the opportunity to be seen and lauded by an appreciative audience – that we get paid in adoration – is flawed at best. I’d call it offensive if I thought there was any unkindness behind it but really it’s just standard operating procedure.
I’ve been through some version of this five times since mid-December when I turned down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at a great role in a Shakespeare play for background work on Men In Black 3. I was nauseas for days, even with some of the most respectable actors and playwrights in town telling me I’d done the right thing. It hurts every time. It hurts because I love rehearsal. I love theatre. It kills me not to do it. So I fully understand why and how we’ve created this culture in which it is perfectly acceptable for actors to work for nothing but love or at least the promise of it.
It’s still not right.
The paycheck I got for Men In Black 3 enabled me to start my own theatre production company. Hard Sparks is founded, in part, on the tenet that theatre artists deserve respect and dignity and, as professionals, must be paid for their work. This is a not-for-profit outfit. Nobody’s bankrolling my little dream. And yet, I swear to G-d and everyone reading this blog that every single artist working on a Hard Sparks show will be compensated. Hell or high water, it will happen. (Thanks to some generous donors, the Hard Sparks coffers already far outweigh my own pathetic personal account.)
I mean, what are we doing? Don’t we want to elevate this art form, and artists along with it? You never hear of a law firm offering positions to fledgling attorneys by saying “Sorry we spent our entire budget decorating your office but we would love for you to work your ass off for us on the off-chance that another firm will come along and hire you away. And really you ought to be grateful for the desk.”
Plus, completely aside from just doing what is right, not paying actors is lousy economics. I firmly believe that it’s actually a cause of small theatre’s current ills, and not a symptom. I guarantee that if you pay actors a little something, they’ll turn around and spend that money on theatre tickets. They can’t help themselves. Everyone would win.
So it’s time to start moving some money around, folks. G-d knows government is not about to do it for us. No, theatre isn’t dying. But it may well commit a slow agonizing suicide if we don’t start doing things differently.
We’ve created a sad cycle. And by ‘we’ I mean actors. Somebody must begin to break it.
Sigh.
JSB
PS. I’m also a playwright, and in the midst of all of this drama, a company producing one of my short plays has reneged on their original offer of two complimentary tickets to the show. The show I wrote. Oh G-d here we go again…
My goals for Hard Sparks are lofty (read: insane) indeed, at least by most local standards. In addition to offering high-quality productions of edgy new plays for an Off-off Broadway audience, I have three primary objectives:
Affordable tickets. I’m interested in interesting the next generation of theatre goers, young people who don’t have a lot of discretionary cash. And, let’s face it, I make art for artists. So whether I am co-producing with a company like Horse Trade as I am on Eightythree Down, or working in a great big fancy place with multiple bathrooms and everything, there will be a way for everyone to enjoy a Hard Sparks show.
Paid personnel. It’s astonishing how little and how infrequently theatre artists are paid for their very difficult work. Very often, the best paying Off-off Broadway gigs work out to less than minimum wage. Money gets poured into venue rental, festival fees, and expensive sets but the whole point of performance - live people sharing meaningful experiences - gets lost. Hard Sparks can’t pay its companies much, but I am absolutely determined that everyone in our shows get something. In addition to respect, admiration, and gratitude, I think artists deserve a bit of dignity and at least one good dinner as well.
Charitable partnerships. Now here’s where it really gets bonkers. As a not-for-profit organization, I want to partner with other not-for-profit organizations for mutual benefit. I’m talking about raising awareness of, and money for, community-based organizations working to improve people’s lives in very direct ways. Whenever possible, Hard Sparks will mount issue-oriented plays and donate a portion of box office receipts to a local CBO working on that issue.
Every time I tell someone of my harebrained scheme, they smirk. Their eyes either narrow (producers) or widen (actors) and they ask me if I have an angel, a DeMedici, a secret backer who’s as much a nutter as I am to contribute to such an obvious debacle. I don't. But this doesn’t concern me. I see miracles happen every time I walk into a rehearsal, and I have absolute certainty that these goals are obtainable and sustainable.
Interesting new works of theatre, created by fairly compensated artists, that make an appreciable difference in the local community?
On the last day of 2010, I came across an excerpt from a speech given by President John F. Kennedy on October 26, 1963 at Amherst College in Massachusetts, in honor of the poet Robert Frost. In this speech, President Kennedy made clear the need for a nation to represent itself not only through its strength but also through its art and as he said, "full recognition of the place of the artist."
It's a moving and inspiring statement on the importance of art to a country's consciousness and national identity. For me these are words to live and to work by, stuck permanently to my soul's fridge door.
Our national strength matters, but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much. This was the special significance of Robert Frost. He brought an unsparing instinct for reality to bear on the platitudes and pieties of society. His sense of the human tragedy fortified him against self-deception and easy consolation. "I have been" he wrote, "one acquainted with the night." And because he knew the midnight as well as the high noon, because he understood the ordeal as well as the triumph of the human spirit, he gave his age strength with which to overcome despair. At bottom, he held a deep faith in the spirit of man, and it is hardly an accident that Robert Frost coupled poetry and power, for he saw poetry as the means of saving power from itself. When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. He has, as Frost said, a lover's quarrel with the world. In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. If Robert Frost was much honored in his lifetime, it was because a good many preferred to ignore his darker truths. Yet in retrospect, we see how the artist's fidelity has strengthened the fibre of our national life.
If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our Nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.
If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. And as Mr. MacLeish once remarked of poets, there is nothing worse for our trade than to be in style. In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may be different elsewhere. But democratic society--in it, the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation. And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost's hired man, the fate of having "nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope."
I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future.
I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world which will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction. Robert Frost was often skeptical about projects for human improvement, yet I do not think he would disdain this hope. As he wrote during the uncertain days of the Second War:
Take human nature altogether since time began . . . And it must be a little more in favor of man, Say a fraction of one percent at the very least . . . Our hold on this planet wouldn't have so increased.
Because of Mr. Frost's life and work, because of the life and work of this college, our hold on this planet has increased.
Text and recording courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Library and the U.S. National Archives.
J.Stephen Brantley's 2007 Lenovo Laptop Personal Computer was laid to rest at 2:48 this afternoon.
The beloved machine is survived by longtime companion, playwright and actor J.Stephen Brantley, and a large number of written works. Together the pair spawned several plays including BloodGrass, EightythreeDown, Furbelow, HardSparkle, TheJamb, ShinyPairOfComplications, and Struck.
Known for its generosity of spirit, the PC also devoted countless hours to projects for non-profit organizations including Raising Malawi, The Kabbalah Centre, Success For Kids / Kids Creating Peace, and CEDEP.
When asked for comment, Mr. Brantley could only say, "Please. I can't really deal with this right now. All I ask is that you give me time to grieve, peacefully, and in private."
Mr. Robert M. Lohman, a well-known designer and family friend, was on hand for the computer's final moments. "J. is just completely devastated," he said. "I mean, he's having to work on this tiny little Acer netbook that doesn't even have Microsoft Word. Yesterday he skipped his fight club. I am concerned about his mental state, if you know what I mean."
Rumours of the laptop's ill health, as well as possible addictions to Cazzo porn and blogger Andrew Sullivan, had been circulating for some time. More than one eyewitness had noticed a pinkish hue to the computer's screen as far back as late July. Brantley's computer guy, Ryan 'Highlander' Cuddihy, denies that it was suffering from a virus.
"The motherboard is shot," he said. "I tried everything, but that's just what happens after a while."
When asked about the possibility of partnering with another laptop computer and word that he may be eyeing a younger Toshiba or Sony model, Brantley uttered a terse "No comment."
"This is really a huge loss for the entire community," added Lohman, "if you know what I mean."
Despite having once endured a complete hard drive transplant, and living for the last year without a battery, the Lenovo had accompanied Mr. Brantley to places as far away as Dublin, Los Angeles and San Antonio. At the time of it's passing, it had been working on two plays, a screenplay, and a television pilot. At this time there is no word on whether these materials can be recovered.
This is, of course, a serious blog from a serious writer. I don’t give it the attention I’d intended, but when I do point my virtual pen this way, it is for some dire purpose. Some pressing issue. Something terribly important that absolutely demands my chiming in.
But this entry is different. Today I noticed a discarded copy of O magazine and found myself wondering, "What are my favorite things?"
Oprah’s twice-yearly list of her Favorites Things has become an event of some cultural significance. Manufacturers court her for years, fans salivate in anticipation, and people commit murder for tickets to the tapings of her Favorite Things episodes. Probably cause she gives stuff away. Nice stuff, like cars. And really really really good scented candles.
In compiling my own list, I wonder if it's necessary that all my favorite things be tangible objects. Must it be actual stuff that can be bought and sold? Noting that 26 of my facebook friends like 'Music' and that many who like 'Movies' also like 'Walking', I figure pretty much anything goes. Of course, I am not giving away any cars.
Or candles. But here it is: The official list of My Favorite Things for Summer 2010.
SUMMER SOUND & VISION: When I heard opera star Renee Fleming's version of Tears For Fears' 'Mad World' I thought, "Okay that's it. No more cover albums, by anyone, ever." Cyndi Lauper's 'Memphis Blues' changed my mind. I am also digging the retro-cool of Mayer Hawthorne and the latest soul stirring LP from Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings.
Madonna's hard-rocking 2009 live version of Borderline. When my Guy keeps pushing my love, I get on the treadmill and work it out to this. “Just try to understand: I’ve given all I can...MOTHERFUCKER!” It's a bonus track on the iTunes version of Sticky & Sweet. A related fave: Detroit native, YouTube sensation, P’town celebrity, and my Slap & Tickle cast mate Aaron Tone performing Express Yourself at a recent Showgirls night at Crown & Anchor. Aaron's star turn comes at 1:40. It brings me endless joy. Also it is hot.
World Cup Football. Of course it is over now. But it remains one of my favorite things for Summer 2010. And Jason Statham. Just in general.
Montgomery Clift, Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly Last Summer. A hot wet hand-wringer about sex, sanity, and psychoanalysis. Okay the 1959 film differs greatly from the stage production, most notably in that Sebastian's homosexuality is, well, cloaked. And the whole thing may seem rather overwrought to a modern audience. Still it has tremendous style and spellbinding performances. Hepburn's entrance alone is so outre that Rocky Horror later paid it homage.
HOT TICKETS: Slap & Tickle is a sexy and powerful play about how drugs, politics, HIV and the internet have changed the sexual and emotional landscape for gay American men over the last twenty-five years. Set in a New York City bathhouse, six actors play twenty characters whose lives intersect in surprising ways. I am very proud to be one of those six actors. You can see my junk live on stage through August 14th at The Provincetown Theatre.
OTHER P'TOWN TIX:Tom Judson'sCanned Ham at The Art House. Tom is a multi-talented musical theatre artist who, at the age of 42, found fame as porn star Gus Maddox. This is his one man multi-instrument show telling that tale. It is smart, sexy, surprisingly moving AND he plays the accordion in a jockstrap. ALSO: I don't really like drag shows, let alone lip-synching impersonators, HOWEVER, I had a blast at Post Office Cabaret's ICONS show. Reluctant at first, cast member Dennis Williams charmed me into attendance. This boy is out on Commercial Street promoting the fuck out of ICONS every day. He works his ass off and is probably deserving of a smarter show in a better venue. His Tina Turner alone is worth the price of admission.
Big Dance Theatre's Commes Toujours Here I Stand is one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Now, not content to wait for the world to get its ecological shit together, Big Dance has instituted their very own energy policy. Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar’s dynamic and very conscientious dance-theatre company has implemented a zero-tolerance policy on trash for its month long rehearsal residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center. Reusable containers, cloth napkins, composting. Brava.
New York Classical Theatre free shows in Central Park. They stage Shakespeare and other classical stuff in public spaces. The audience follows the actors about as scenes play out against an ever-changing backdrop. I saw Richard 3 recently and it was magical. Next up is Much Ado About Nothing.
TASTE IT: The Leavitt Corporation's Teddie Old Fashioned All Natural Peanut Butter. I’m very picky about peanut butter. I only buy the kind which contains but two ingredients, peanuts and salt. Even so, the taste of the stuff varies widely. Teddie won the Men's Health taste test in every catagory, plus it has a cute bear on the label. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen it outside Massachusetts and I know I’ll miss it when I’m back in New York.
Despite what a certain online interview would have you believe, I do not actually enjoy ice cream very often or all that much. My biggest problem is one you just can’t get around – it's cold. Once in a while I will make an exception for a really exceptional coconut gelato, but I actually prefer Liberte brand Mediterranee coconut yoghurt. Yes I am comparing it not to other yoghurts, but to actual dessert. It is not as sweet or nearly as cold (though I suppose you could freeze it) as ice cream, and that is part of why I love it. It sounds fancy but I get it at Food Emporium all the time.
Speaking of coconut, I love Natural Hive lip balm from Morgan & McHale. It is all natural, petroleum free, with an spf of 15. And 100% of it's profits are donated to environmental charities. They have other flavors but the coconut is my favorite by far.
GET IT OUT: Watching nothing in 3D except actual life.Go to a National Park for G-d’s sake. An annual U.S. National Park Service pass will get you into every Park in the nation for about what it would cost to take a date to the movies if you include popcorn and a Diet Coke. And really, do you want to remember this as the summer you saw The Last Airbender?
Reading classics by local authors instead of beach trash. Not that there is anything wrong with a fun read, but this summer bring something a little more serious to the beach. On Cape Cod? How about Henry David Thoreau or Eugene O’Neill. If you’re anywhere on Long Island it’s Walt Whitman. South Florida is Hemingway territory. For the West Coast, Steinbeck and for Gulf beaches maybe Harper Lee or Larry McMurty. Not that anyone will actually be frolicking at on the Gulf of Mexico this summer…
WEAR IT OUT: I’ve decided to wear as little clothing as possible this summer. (My job actually requires tan lines.) But if I must…
Marc by Marc Jacobs ‘Stinky Rat’ long-sleeve t-shirts. Nice to have when a hot afternoon becomes a cool summer evening. I don’t go to clambakes but if I did, I would wear one. They’re really soft.Also, one-of-a-kind silkscreened vintage tees from Rogues Gallery in Provincetown. Actually, anything from RG is hot, including the dudes who work there.
Pinaud Clubman Aftershave Lotion. I like to smell like an old-fashioned barber shop any time of year, but it is especially nice in the summertime, I think.
Hunky guys in nerdy spectacles. Especially if they also have tattoos. Dumb just isn't sexy anymore. I like a guy who benches 250 and reads Kierkegaard.
BUT SERIOUSLY... Educating and empowering Malawi's nearly two million orphan and vulnerable children. Raising Malawi. Preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa. The Sing Campaign. Civil rights and human dignity for LGBT citizens throughout the developing world. IGLHRC.
...and having an unforgettably meaningful, creative, transformational season wherever you may spend it. Here's to summertime.
At the moment, I am in Provincetown acting in a play set in a men’s bathhouse. I’m away from my partner and the apartment we share in Greenwich Village. Last week I was lucky enough to see porn starGus Maddox perform a Kander & Ebb classic on accordion.
My life is so gay.
Which you probably assumed by the first sentence of this blog entry. Even this city’s Portuguese Folk Festival, celebrated last night with a parade, has a certain queer bent. I overheard a couple of twentysomethings discussing it:
“What’s all this Portugal stuff about?” “They just legalized gay marriage. They’re only like the seventh country in the world.” “Oh yay Portugal!”
No doubt Gay Pride - Portuguese or otherwise - is worth a celebration. Having the freedom to live as openly as I do is something for which I am very grateful. It’s extraordinary if you think about it. Forty-one years since the Stonewall Riots, which happened just a few blocks from where I live, gay and lesbian Americans have achieved tremendous visibility. We are out at work and to our families. We share homes and raise children. Today we will take to the streets on fabulous floats and shake our jock-strapped asses to Lady Gaga without fear of imprisonment or execution because we don’t live in Uganda.
Yeah. I’m that guy.
I’m the guy that reminds anyone who’ll listen that it was a march before it was a parade. All you wanted to do was enjoy the party and I had to show up and point out that, for all our progress, most of the world’s LGBT population still live in constant fear. For gay folk in the developing world, marching for their rights is dangerous. And a parade is pure fantasy.
And yes I am well aware that we are still second-class citizens here in the States. Of course you wouldn’t know it to look around Provincetown. Married gay couples sport rings, share homes, hold hands and push strollers along Commercial Street, their unions fully recognized by the state of Massachusetts. In a place like P’town, it is easy to forget that one’s federal government still hasn’t caught up with the cottage industry that is destination gay weddings on old Cape Cod. It’s easy to forget that most gay folk don’t have it so easy.
But in other parts of the world, life is not quite as lavender:
In Uganda, a bill has been tabled that prescribes the death penalty for gays and lesbians deemed ‘serial offenders.’ The law would also criminalize the ‘aiding, abetting and promotion’ (read: condom distribution, psycho-social care, etc) of homosexuality, as well as punishing anyone who fails to report homosexual activity to the authorities. It is easy to giggle at the YouTube video of Pastor Martin Ssemba explaining the devious plan by Western homosexuals to coerce Ugandan boys to ‘eat da poo-poo’ – complete with visual aids and scat porn! But it’s also terrifying to know how many poor and uneducated people take him quite seriously.
Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famous assertion there were no gays in his country may one day be true: gay teens there are hanged for ‘homosexual acts.’ And Iraqi militias are torturing and killing gay men by super-gluing their rectums shut and force-feeding them laxatives until their insides explode.
Arrests are on the rise in Senegal, not only of LGBT citizens but also of AIDS service organizations who minister to gay folks. Charges of ‘inciting debauchery’ and ‘creating a network of homosexuals’ will land you five years in prison.
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe blames many of his nation’s ills on homosexuals, who he characterizes as “sexual perverts lower than dogs and pigs.”
The beating, slashing and murder of Jamaican gays continues to go unpunished, perhaps because such atrocities are often committed by the very officials meant to prevent them.
And then there is Malawi and the curious case of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimablanga.
In December 2009, following their chinkhoswe, or engagement, ceremony, Monjeza and Chimbalanga were arrested and eventually charged with gross indecency. For six months they were repeatedly denied bail, suffered beatings and fell ill in Blantyre’s notoriously overcrowded Chichiri prison, and were subjected to humiliating anal examinations meant to determine whether the men had, in fact, had sex. (I know. As if.)
I took great interest in Malawi years ago, and have been fortunate enough to do some writing for the Raising Malawi foundation. While working for RM, I learned a great deal about the challenges facing that nation: endemic poverty, chronic disease, a million plus orphan children desperate for health care, education, and a little love. Naturally I became curious about the gay male population there. It took me quite a while to find anyone who’d talk to me but eventually I hooked up with a tiny organization called CEDEP. They function primarily as a healthcare outreach group to Malawi’s sexual minorities, particularly MSM’s (Men who have Sex with Men). I helped them to launch a website just before Monjeza and Chimbalanga were arrested.
Then quite suddenly CEDEP was thrust into a spotlight. They were initially the only organization helping Chimbalanga and Monjeza with legal aid, supplemental foodstuffs, and moral support. ILGHRC came on board, as did Amnesty International (eventually). But most of the world had little to say until after the couple were found guilty of ‘buggery’ and ‘carnal acts against the order of nature’ and sentenced to fourteen years hard labour.
What happened next was extraordinary. Some credit the many activists working tirelessly for the men’s freedom. Some say it was Madonna. Most likely it was a visit by UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon and the round condemnations by donor nations like the US and UK that did it: President Bingu wu Mutharika pardoned the pair and ordered their immediate release.
Since then I’ve been asked why I hadn’t written anything about the case. Actually, I’ve written a great deal, just not in the form of a blog entry, until now. The truth is that I became rather involved with the whole drama, at least in a peripheral way, and I can tell those of you who haven’t kept up with recent episodes that this sad saga is still hardly resolved.
After the pardon it was quickly made abundantly clear that Steven and Tiwonge were not to see one another, on pain of re-arrest. In their separate villages, the men were hounded by reporters and ostracized by neighbors. Trans-identified Tiwonge was defiant. Steven was drunk. Both found solace in a CEDEP safe house in Lilongwe, and there were discussions about seeking political asylum in another country.
Then it all got really weird.
Steven Monjeza announced his plans to wed Dorothy Gulo, a biological woman and, typically, Tiwonge was among the last to know, reading it in the Nyasa Times with the rest of us. Businessman Sudi Sulaimana gave Steven 200,000 kwacha to get on his heterosexual feet, and Steven issued a statement that he’d been coerced into the ‘gay life’ by Western activists. (Now we hear that Steven’s engagement to prostitute Dorothy may not pan out any better than his betrothal to Tiwonge did.)
There has been, in some camps, a feeling of betrayal towards Monjeza. It is hard for those of us who have the luxury of living out gay lives to understand his abrupt about-face. But things are different in sub-Saharan Africa. It is impossible for us to fathom the kind of pressure and fear this very young man has been living with. Identity is a very complicated matter for African men. Most MSM’s marry women and raise children. They’ve every right to.
Or at least they should have. Gay rights is human rights. And everyone should give a damn about them.
But gay Westerners especially should take notice and, however they can, take action. It is our responsibility as relatively free queers to champion our brothers and sisters who do not have a voice of their own.
While many see Steven and Tiwonge as pioneers, the two never set out to be activists of any kind. They didn’t really have a clue what they were getting into. They were only trying to live true to themselves and do so in a way that hurt no one. This is something that many if not most of us take for granted. Of course there are people in my own country who don’t like how I live my life. They have the freedom to support things like Proposition 8. I have the freedom to very actively oppose it. In other countries, there is no discussion. There’s no vote. There is life in prison or death by hanging.
Why should we care? It’s a small world and getting smaller. We’ve done better than okay in the years since June 27, 1969. A lot has changed. For one thing, our village extends far beyond Christopher Street, or the Castro, or Soho. Ecology and economics are showing us everyday how we are all connected, globally, for better or worse. We cannot ignore the plight of LGBT people in the developing world. They are part of our not-so-far-flung family. If any one of us is not free, then none of is. Not really. Not yet.
There is nothing ‘complicated’ about my facebook relationship status. It’s all out there. I always say that when the neo-Conservative Right Wing fanatics take power, I will be in the very first boxcar off to the camps. I am only half-joking.
Because a wave of homophobia is sweeping across the continent of Africa with deadly effect. I believe that we are on the verge of seeing all-out genocide. You often hear people say of the Holocaust, “never again” without taking into account that there hasn’t been a moment since WW2 when a minority population wasn’t being persecuted somewhere. You hear people say of the Third Reich’s ‘Final Solution’ that “We didn’t know.”
Well now you know. If you are reading this, you have no longer have the excuse of ignorance.
So what can you do to prevent the extermination of gays and lesbians in the developing world? More than you think!
Write emails to your own social and political leaders and to those in other countries as well. Letters sent by post are even better. It is easy to get the addresses of elected officials via the web, but if you really need help doing it, contact me and I will hook you up. Added bonus: thank you letters from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama!
Educate yourself and share what you learn with others. Set a Google alert for ‘gay Uganda’ and you’ll soon have the latest news on the status of the draconian Bahati Bill. Then repost articles via facebook.
And if you want to learn more about the situation in Malawi, visit CEDEP's website.
But at the very least, please take a moment out of Pride Month to consider homosexuals in places like Malawi, Uganda, Iraq and Iran. They are not as far away as you think.
Please don’t get me wrong. Rainbow flags and Cher impersonators are great. But the men and women at Stonewall stood up for a great deal more than that. The pioneers of the gay rights movement fought tirelessly, lived, and in too many cases died so that you and I could enjoy a modicum of human dignity. We must do the same for LGBT people in the developing world.
And we must do it now, before it is too late. Put down the glow stick and take up that torch.
The following is a preview of my program notes for the national premiere of The Jamb at Eclectic Company Theatre, opening January 15th, 2010.
It’s been twenty winters since I first stumbled into Gramercy Park and became mesmerized by my adopted hometown. New York has changed a lot since then, and I hope I have too. Certainly my life looks different now, and my priorities have shifted. I question my life’s purpose much less these days. But I still struggle every moment with how best to manifest it.
Change is hard – it’s supposed to be – especially when you feel like there’s no road map for where you’re going. The Jamb’s Tuffer and Roderick have each arrived at a kind of spiritual limbo where quick fixes no longer bring any fulfillment. We all go up against it. A few of us break through it. At a certain point, there is nothing left but to take real responsibility, not only for ourselves, but for the world in which we live. Gay Americans face a great many issues these days but, to me, this is the most important. It’s beginning to look like we may get our place at the proverbial table – so just what do we want to bring to it?
I sometimes have tiny panics while bringing in the groceries, or pulling weeds, or watching soccer as my partner folds bath towels. I must confess a phobia of khaki pants and white picket fences. Sometimes, for two seconds, I wonder what the fuck I am doing all grown up and settled down, and I long a little for my days as a horny longhaired bar-hopping hooligan.
But only a little. Because while change is hard, it’s also tremendously rewarding. And the great thing about personal transformation is that there’s always more of it to be had. I’m not crazy about the new LED lights they’ve put on the Christmas tree in Gramercy Park, but I don’t have time to bitch about it. I’m turning forty this year and, like the characters in The Jamb, I am finally realizing that life is less about growing up than growing constantly. We’ve got stuff to take care of! May we all learn more, and do more, and become much more than we can now imagine.
It’s tough to be stuck in the jamb, but it’s also a great spot to find one’s self. It’s a place of infinite potential. From here, anything can happen. It just takes one big step – and a willingness to take full responsibility for whatever you create on the far side of that threshold.
Thanks to everyone at ECT for giving my play its national premiere. I also want to acknowledge those who inspired or fostered The Jamb in its earliest forms: Mike Albo, Darrell Blackburn, Hunter Gilmore, Robert M. Lohman, Lue McWilliams, McNeely Myers, Michael Villane, Jonathan Warman and, most especially, Moshe & Ruthie Rosenberg and all my teachers at The Centre in Manhattan.
It was a chilly forty degrees at 7am on a Saturday morning, and my friend Chris Cuddihy was standing outside the CBS studios in a kilt. You may be thinking he must have been doing so for a very good cause, and you'd be right. But those of you acquainted with Chris also know that he might have done it just for fun.
Chris has rowed across the Atlantic Ocean (yes, rowed, with like, oars) and run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. He does these things for charities like the Wounded Warriors Project and Isaac's House, an orphanage in Uganda. His latest adventure will take him from New York City to Washington DC. On foot. He's running a punishing 250 miles to deliver a petition for a Veterans Bill of Rights to our Congressional Representatives.
Understand that Chris is not a professional athlete. He's also no spring chicken. He came back from his 7 in 7 on 7 trek with some very messed-up feet. You don't even want to know what rowing an ocean will do to a guy's ass cheeks. It takes a very determined and rather remarkable sort of man to undergo such things.
But Chris is a middle-aged guy who lives on Long Island and works for the county. He is a husband and father. He taught me how to design this website. He goes to church.
Not that I want you to think he's 'just a normal guy'. He sports a ponytail and tattoos, and can rock a peace sign and a 'Support the troops' sign simultaneously. He is quintessentially American despite his Scottish heritage. (And don't think his ancestry explains the kilt. He likely just enjoys wearing skirts.)
Chris and his family come over for dinner sometimes and he and I talk about all that's wrong and how we will right it through grassroots philanthropy. We have great discussions about the importance of backing up one's spiritual endeavors with actual work. More than most I know, he puts the 'active' in activism. There's is no doubt in my mind that his mad stunts do save lives and improve our planet's future.
His greatest legacy may well be with his son. Ryan has apparently inherited the active philanthropy gene. He recently hiked the entire Appalachian Trail south-to-north through rain, cold, mosquitoes and loneliness for the Wounded Warriors Project. And he did the whole thing in a kilt.
Of course the true hero is wife and mother Pat. During our Sunday dinners, she and Robert are forced to listen to Chris and I drone on about all the ways we'll save the world with just one more step. One more signature. One more dollar. One more day.
You don't have to be Madonna or Bono or Desmond Tutu or Bill O'Reilly (chas v'shalom) to make a difference. You needn't run seven marathons either. Your impact can be simple and immediate. Just find a way to share your passion.
Share ridiculously.
Do it now.
JSB
Please visit http://www.nydcrun.com/ to track Chris' progress and add your name to the petition for a Veterans Bill of Rights.
J.Stephen Brantley is a playwright and performer based in New York City. He is the Artistic Director of Hard Sparks, an independent theatre production company.
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