>>> Welcome to Stonewall @ 50, a new CUNY TV Digital
Series celebrating Pride 2019.
I’m Donna Hanover.
I am here with Patrick Pacheco, best-selling author
of “American Theater Wing, an Oral History,” and he writes
frequently about LGBTQ issues. Patrick people would
be surprised at how far back you can go,
if you’re asked the question, “What are the seminal plays
about the LGBTQ experience?”
>>> It’s extraordinary. You can actually go back
to 1926, and a play called “The Captive” which had
just the most veiled reference whatsoever to
lesbianism, totally off stage. And yet it was
busted on a morals charge. Brought up on charges that
were later dismissed. What’s significant about
that is that the lead actress was a woman named
Helen Menken, who later led the American Theater Wing.
“The Captive” got busted the same night as “SEX”
by Mae West. And both were brought up on
morals charges and both were dismissed.
It made Mae West a tremendous star.
>>> I know that you’ve said it’s very hard to winnow
it down. But in the modern era, there are four plays that
are really significant: “The Boys in the Band,”
“Torch Song Trilogy,” “The Normal Heart” and
“Angels in America.” Right?
>>> That’s absolutely true. There’s a whole list
of other ones, of course, that we can talk about.
But in the interest of time, it’s best to sort of
concentrate and focus on that, because they had a
tremendous impact both on the Gay Community and
the public at large.
>>> So, what has happened to the Gay Play in the
last 50 years?
>>> The short answer Donna is, that it’s grown-up.
It’s gone from internalized self-loathing
homophobia to triumphant “Don’t Mess with Me” power.
It’s gone from being defined by our sexuality,
to plays about love, intimacy, compassion, marriage and
even gay adoption. It’s gone from, casts of actors who
were afraid that if they were in a Gay Play their careers
would be ruined, to casts of actors who were proud to
be in a Revival of a Gay Play like “The Boys in the Band”
which was an all-gay cast. And it’s gone from playwrights,
who happen to be gay, writing about gay theme plays that
are as universal as anything else out there.
>>> So, “The Boys in the Band” actually premiered
Off-Broadway the year before Stonewall - 68.
>>> That’s right. It was a tremendous groundbreaking
play. Nobody had ever seen anything like it.
The images of gay prior to that, in terms of entertainment,
were people like Paul Lynde, Liberace and Charles
Nelson Reilly. So, to be confronted with a bunch of
gay men in an Upper East Side apartment,
celebrating a birthday. In which, there was a school
teacher, yes, an interior designer, and a whole host
of different professionals gathered together in
one room. Talking about their relationships.
Talking about sexuality. And, sort of, presenting for
the first time, homosexuality in a way that had never
quite been seen before. It became a cause célèbre.
With people like Jackie Kennedy Onassis coming
down to see it and bringing her socialite friends.
With Truman Capote, with everybody else,
coming down to this small Off-Broadway Play.
It went on for quite a long time, two or three years.
The playwright, Mark Crowley, was very
brave in doing that. And what was significant about it is,
that yes it was bitchy, and yes it was self-loathing,
and there was a line by the lead actor,
Michael, who’s the host of the party, that says,
“If only we can learn not to hate each other, so much.”
That sparked a great controversy within the Gay Community.
>>> Fast forward to 1978, Torch Song Trilogy.”
What was that about?
>>> The interesting thing about what Harvey Fierstein
did is, you’re absolutely right, it started at the all
these off Off-Broadway Theaters, La Mama, International Stud.
It was a three-part epic. Starring, again, a drag queen,
a torch singer, played by Harvey Fierstein.
It brought him to the public consciousness in a huge way.
And, it sort of, just sort of, eked out this existence.
It was playing to half-houses. John Glines, who was one
of the early pioneers of Gay Theater, picked it up.
Supported it. Gave Harvey money to continue it.
Ellen Stewart, at La Mama, helped nurture it as well.
It was a three-part epic that you would have thought would
never see the light of day on Broadway.
And yet in 1982, it was brought to Broadway.
Not only was it had a long run on Broadway,
but it also won the Tony Award. And its themes, again,
were from somebody who was out and proud and wanted to
show that, as Harvey says in his character,
“People think that homosexuals cannot love.” That play
was all about the love that he had for this
bisexual man who was trying to decide whether
he was going to stay with his wife or go with
Harvey’s character. And, also, the love that he and
his mother had, as contentious as it was.
And also, the love that he had for a young gay teen
that he adopted. Who in the original production was
played by Matthew Broderick. So, these were
new themes that were coming up in 82, and it
went all the way to win a Tony Award as best play;
and also, a Tony Award for Harvey Fierstein in the
lead role. And again, it was groundbreaking,
and again, it showed the general public an image of
gay men that they had never had before.
That gay men are capable of love and that they are capable
of marriage and adoption. And that was 37 years ago.
>>> And then the AIDS epidemic struck, and what
we have is “The Normal Heart,” Larry Kramer.
>>> Right. This was fascinating. Because,
in the midst of this epidemic that was killing gay men
and other communities, as well, the Haitian Community
and in this autobiographical play,
Larry Kramer, the author, looks back at a time when
he created the Gay Men’s Health Crisis with other
people in the midst of this terrifying epidemic.
And, what had occurred at that time, is that Larry
was absolutely balls out an activist in terms of
calling the government to task. Inditing it, in the
most ferocious language, for its inability to
address the AIDS crisis - both the Federal
Government and the Ed Koch, City Government.
>>> Larry Kramer was even mad at the Gay Men’sHealth Crisis.
>>> There was this tension between Larry Kramer,
as this sort of Old Testament Prophet, screaming about
the AIDS epidemic, that was just really 3 years
into its terrifying run, both toward the Gay
Community and to the general public. That they
were not paying it sufficient attention.
And this was pitted against other people who wanted a
more conciliatory approach.
>>> They thought they could get more progress
against what was a death sentence, if you had AIDS,
you had it. It was a death sentence. It was beyond,
it was beyond terrifying. What came next, five years
down the road, was “Angels in America” by Tony Kushner.
>>> It was this political and philosophical
seven-hour epic in two parts. That Tony Kushner
had begun writing in late parts of the Reagan
Administration, and continued, and it finally
debuted in the Clinton administration,
interestingly enough. Within this kind of
microcosm of relationship, Tony Kushner then goes on
to explore politics, philosophy, religion -
the power of God or the lack of power. At one point he
even says, you know, we should take up and sue
God for abandonment.
>>> Did you die?
>>> No, I’m here on business.
[Laugher]
>>> Certainly, people that were dealing with AIDS,
at the time and losing their friends, felt that God had
abandoned them. And yet, there was this hopeful
message that Tony Kushner created, because Prior
does survive. We had gone from The Killing Fields of
“The Normal Heart” to AZT. And the fact that,
it would continue. That, you know, the tribe would continue.
Gay men would continue and gay women would continue.
And there was a great deal of compassion and conciliationwithin the play as well.
>>> One of the subplots of “Angels in America” was
the story of Harper, the wife. Who was, obviously,
very unfulfilled because her husband, in fact,
loved her but not as a husband would love a wife.
And so, she felt very inadequate, to say the least,
and she became a drug addict, and so on.
I remember seeing this, initially, and I had some
feeling of identification with her, because it was
kind of revelatory. That when people are forced in
the closet, and therefore have marriages for show,
the other person also suffers. So, this dealt
with so, so many themes and it won the Pulitzer.
>>> It’s won every award in the book. But you
brought up a very good point, which is that when,
and this is central to a lot of Gay Plays,
when there is repression the ID leaks out in the most
damaging ways and there’s a lot of collateral damage.
You brought that point up beautifully.
>>> It was wrong of me to marry you. I knew you...
It’s a sin. And it’s killing us both.
>>> The other thing that is lovely about “Angels in
America” is the relationship between Prior and
Joe Pitts Mormon mother. That was, at one
point she says, “Don’t make assumptions about me,
and I won’t make assumptions about you.”
And that is the beginning of a beautiful relationship
between the two of them that last until the end
of the play. So, that again was Tony Kushner talking about-
communicate, connect. Just open your hearts and your minds
to people that you don’t think you’re going to get along with.
>>> You’ll find, my friend, that what you love
will take you places you never dreamed you’d go.
>>> I think the last line of “Angels in America,”
which says, “The great work continues,” the great
work continues in Gay playwrights and Lesbian
playwrights and Transgendered actors.
>>> I know that you feel moving forward “Fun Home”
is something that is a very significant production.
>>> Absolutely. I mean, our sisters, our Lesbian
sisters have gotten short shrift in the theater.
For some reason everything seemed to generate toward
gay relationships, male relationships.
The miracle, the great miracle of “Fun Home” was that,
again it started at the Public Theater where a lot
of these play started, and it was nurtured very
carefully with Lisa Krone and Jeanine Tesori.
Taking this Alison Bechdel graphic comic that she had
created, about her father who was a gay man,
a closeted gay man. Having to deal with that as she
herself is coming out of the closet and, you know,
falling in love in college. And, it goes to the point
that you made earlier that repression, when it is there,
it leaks out in damaging ways. And Bruce commits,
ultimately commits suicide. It’s a young woman trying
to come to terms with her father’s closeted personality
and persona and what it leads to.
>>> My dad and I, both grew up in the same small
Pennsylvania town. And he was Gay and I was Gay and
he killed himself and I became a Lesbian Cartoonist.
>>> And then you have black playwrights,
like Jeremy O. Harris, who is addressing interracial
black and white relationships in plays
like the “Slave Play” and in “DADDY,” which recently
had a run Off-Broadway. And you have writers like
Terrell Alvin McCraney addressing what homophobia
is and homosexuality is within the black community.
>>> I know that we’ve left out some of the fantastic
musicals that deal with LGBTQ issues: “Rent,”
“La Cage aux Folles,” “Kinky Boots.”
>>> “Kinky Boots,” that’s Harvey again, to some extent.
It’s great that Harvey has become quote-unquote
mainstream. I don’t know if he would think of himself
as mainstream. But I think what you have to acknowledge
is the great debt that we owe these playwrights,
Gay and Lesbian, and these Transgendered actors
that have now been in plays like Jean Lee‘s
“Straight White Men.” I think what’s important is to
acknowledge the great bravery of these writers
and actors as we’ve progressed from Mart
Crowley to Harvey Fierstein to Larry Kramer
to Tony Kushner to Matthew Lopez to Terell Alvin
McCraney, etc. and so forth. Because it was hard
to be out there, certainly in the early years.
It was not easy. It could have invited, I’m sure it invited,
lots of hate mail. And yet they continued because it
was important for this Community to have a voice
and to show it in all of its prismatic beauty.
>>> So, as Tony Kushner wrote, “The great work continues.”
>>> Yes. Amen, to that.
>>> This is Donna Hanover with Patrick Pacheco and
“American Theater After Stonewall.” Please join us
every Friday night in the month of June for more
“Stonewall @ 50,” a CUNY TV Digital Series
celebrating Pride 2019.