From school years to employment situations, from my experiences in summer camp to more than four decades spent writing about the arts, I've met and enjoyed the company of many wonderful people
In his 1965 play, The Odd Couple, Neil Simon wrote that "Lovers come and go, but the Friday night poker game is forever." While the power of social media has enabled me to reconnect with a close friend from elementary and junior high school, I still cherish some friendships with people who have long since passed away. Many succumbed to the AIDS crisis; others were lucky enough to live long and fruitful lives. When a good friend I met during the 1960s recently visited San Francisco with his husband, our conversation picked up where we had left off 10 years ago after a lunch date in New York. Even if our bones now creak a little, our rapport remains as warm as ever.
Such friendships are impossible to quantify with statistics. As always, I prefer to turn to The Great American Songbook for musical numbers that help me capture a mood, a memory, or a mystery.
Each year, San Francisco's Left Coast Theatre Company presents at least one anthology of short plays centered around a theme that impacts the lives of people in the LGBT community. As the company has grown, so has the breadth and scope of the experiences it portrays. This fall's anthology (entitled Besties) includes six plays that would have been inconceivable back in the 1960s, when I was coming out. As LCTC's promotional blurb explains:
"They say some friends come and go like waves in the ocean, but best friends stick around like an octopus on your face. Let's face it. Sometimes friendship can be sticky. (What is a bro job anyway?) LCTC's newest collection of hilarious and heartfelt original shorts will have you reaching for the tissues and crying with laughter as we share six original tales of the unpredictability and wackiness of queer friendships in the modern age."
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The evening starts off strong with a two-character play by Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich about two teenage girls who have been BFFs for as long as they can remember. Soon they'll be heading off to separate colleges, knowing that their lives may take them down vastly different paths. Jenny (Zoe Chien) is suddenly confronted with the realization that, while they will always be best friends forever theoretically, it's possible that a moment may arrive after which they never see each other again.
The action takes place in a high school hallway between classes as both girls are rushing to go to the bathroom. When Jessica (LeighAnn Cannon) nervously reveals her big secret, it catches Jenny completely off guard. It seems that, throughout her life, Jessica has always felt that she was living in the wrong body. Today, she desperately needs to go to the bathroom but wants to use the boys' instead of the girls' facilities.
Sensitively directed by David Rice, Standing Up takes the simple act of urination and yanks it from the hot potato politics of transgender students being allowed to use the bathroom of their choice to the deeply personal impact that Jenny's choice might have on the close friendship that sustained her during some of her most emotionally volatile years.
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| LeighAnn Cannon (Jessica) and Zoe Chien (Jenny) are two high school BFFs in Standing Up (Photo by: Ashley Tateo) |
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While some people insist that familiarity breeds contempt, in many relationships it simply means that two people know each other's vulnerabilities too well. For the free-thinking Mame Dennis and her boozy actress friend, Vera Charles, their familiarity leads to a series of hilarious digs and loving putdowns.Jeffrey Neuman's play, Kindred Spirits, focuses on two gay golden agers. After decades of serial monogamy, Charles (Nick Leonard) has made peace with his status as a geriatric single. His close friend, Robert (Eric Berglund), is still trying to meet men online for sex but was recently horrified when a younger man cuddled up beside him in bed and called him "Daddy."
When Robert finishes his drink and asks his friend to open another bottle of wine, the only booze left on hand is an unused (and probably re-gifted) bottle of whipped-cream flavored vodka. In between arguing about the risks and benefits of opening the bottle, a question that has been bothering Robert finally comes up for discussion. Considering their varying levels of success with other men, how come Charles and Robert have never had sex together? Charles nervously points out that sometimes it's better to keep sex out of a great friendship. Louis, however, has a few drinks in him and is feeling frisky.
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| Nick Leonard (Charles) and Eric Berglund (Robert) are two gay seniors in a scene from Kindred Spirits (Photo by: Ashley Tateo) |
Under Christian Heppinstall's coy direction, the two men try to maneuver into position for a tentative kiss (which, considering the current state of their bodies, is not as easy as it might have been when they first met 37 years ago). After some moments of poignant physical comedy, the play ends on a warm and wistful note.
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What happens when a trio of close friends have to rescue one of their best buddies in a moment of crisis? In Erica Andracchio's hilarious play, The Breakup, three gay men are gathered in an apartment trying to figure out what to do with their friend Deena (LeighAnn Cannon), who has blacked out and is now hiding beneath a comforter on the couch. The tidiest of the three, James (James Gregory), has managed to make himself a perfect martini in the ten minutes since he arrived on the scene. The most promiscuous man in the room, Thomas (Michael Conner), has had lots of experience getting over a broken heart.
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| James Gregory (James), LeighAnn Cannon (Deena), and Michael Conner (Thomas) in a scene from The Breakup (Photo by: Ashley Tateo) |
Now that she has risen from her stupor, Deanna is eager for revenge and needs to be talked down by her trusty gaggle of gay men. After leaving Adam a voicemail containing a firm deadline by which she wants him to get all of his belongings out of her apartment, she wonders why her friends can't just leave her alone. "That's because you're in MY apartment," explains Kyle. Maltby has directed The Breakup with a solid sense of humor and a knowing eye toward how such crises can erupt (and should be dealt with)
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| James Gregory (James), LeighAnn Cannon (Deena), and Michael Conner (Thomas) in a scene from The Breakup (Photo by: Ashley Tateo) |
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Alex Dremann's two-hander entitled Brenda Gets Herself Slapped introduces audiences to two married women who have been best friends for many years. As the play begins, Brenda (Gabrielle Motarjemi) and Mary (Mel Stefanski) are playing a game of gin during which Brenda's behavior has become increasingly obstreperous. Each time she picks up a card from the deck, she looks at it and then places it back down on the table while loudly proclaiming "Slap!" Maybe that's because Brenda's got a lot on her mind. Her daughter has recently come out as a lesbian and is coming to visit, along with her Asian girl friend named Lu ("that's Lu, but not as in Lulu...."). After her husband, Bill, passed away, Brenda has shown no interest in dating, much less finding another husband.
Mary's husband, Kevin, is still very much alive although far from interesting. The couple rarely have sex together and, several years ago, when both couples went on a cruise together, Brenda noticed Mary kissing a woman in a narrow hallway. The name Holly has occasionally popped up in conversation although Mary denies there is anything going on. But Mary has an interesting idea that she's been focusing on for quite some time: Having always suspected that Brenda was attracted to Kevin, she suggests that her best friend have sex with Mary's husband, insisting that it could be a win-win-win situation. When Brenda confronts Mary about her interest in other women, she is told that nothing ever happened with the woman on the cruise or with Holly. But as the play ends, Mary quietly confesses "It was always you."
Blessed with Gabrielle Motarjemi's wonderfully rumpled presence and Mel Stefanski's stubbornness about keeping her feelings to herself, Chris Maltby has directed this short play with a great deal of sensitivity to the love that once dared not speak its name.
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| Gabrielle Motarjemi (Brenda) and Mel Stefanski (Mary) are two long-time friends in Brenda Gets Herself Slapped (Photo by: Ashley Tateo) |
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Written by Jessica Moss, P in V captures a fag hag's fear of ruining a great friendship that has rested on a solid foundation of emotional and intellectual intimacy. Jenny (Zoe Chien) is a healthy straight woman in her mid thirties who is increasingly aware that her biological clock is ticking. Many of the men she has dated have turned out to be losers and (like a certain subset of women) all of the good men in her life are gay. Unwilling to adopt a child, and wanting someone's sperm without having to embark on a relationship in order to get it, she wonders who she can turn to who could match her genetic preferences and be willing to father her child?
Beautifully directed by Carole Swann, the action takes place in Jenny's apartment as she and her close friend, Robbie (James Gregory), share their weekly dinner of Chinese takeout food. As Jenny starts focusing on her fertility issues, she runs through the obvious group of gay men she knows, dismissing each and every one without ever suggesting that Robbie might be a viable candidate to be her sperm donor. Little does she know that Robbie would love to have a child and is even willing to risk attempting "P in V" sex with his best friend. He's also deeply hurt that Jenny didn't think to put him on her list of potential donors.
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| Zoe Chien (Jenny) and James Gregory (Robbie) in a tense moment from P In V (Photo by: Ashley Tateo) |
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The final play on the program is a bit more complicated. Set in a small town in the Carolinas, Lisa (Mel Stefanski) is tensely preparing for a birthday celebration to honor the memory of her best friend and former hairdresser who recently passed away. She is being helped by the fussy, fey, and overly protective Benny (Stefin Collins), who managed her friend's hair salon, and the easily distracted Mitzi (Janice Rumschlag), who means well, but....
James A. Martin's Birthday focuses on the difficult question of who gets to call themselves a deceased man's best friend. Is it the very tightly-wound control freak who adored him? Or the man who befriended him in eighth grade and subsequently became his lover. When news leaks out that Tim (Eric Berglund) has arrived in town (even though he was specifically not invited to the party Lisa has been planning) what should have been a loving celebration of a deceased man's life quickly becomes a hostile and emotionally territorial confrontation.
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| Mel Stefanski (Lisa) and Stefin Collins (Benny) in a tense moment from Birthday (Photo by: Ashley Tateo) |
Lisa refuses to forgive Tim for slapping Richard while they were on a cruise, but she's never known what really happened or why. Tim's lover was an alcoholic trying to battle severe pain by abusing opioids on top of all the booze he was consuming. When Tim found Richard passed out on the bathroom floor, the only reason he slapped his lover's face was to try to get him to wake up and live. Not only has Tim had to deal with Lisa's accusations and shunning following Richard's death, he thinks it's high time for Lisa to admit to her role in enabling her dead friend's addictions. As directed by Andrew Calabrese, Birthday takes a sobering look at the lies we tell ourselves in order to protect the narrative we've created about someone we love. Tim's moving monologue at the end of the play is intended to heal the rift which has distanced him from Lisa and her friends.
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| Eric Berglund (Tim) offers a toast to his deceased lover in a poignant moment from Birthday (Photo by: Ashley Tateo) |
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In what might best be described as The Curious Incident of the Dyke in the Night-Time, 2018 may be remembered as the year in which two small Bay area theatre companies presented dramas in which headstrong Caucasian lesbians, blinded by their white privilege, carelessly brought great bodily harm down upon their African lovers.Earlier this year, TheatreFIRST presented the world premiere of WAAFRIKA 123, a new play by Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko which deals with the tradition of female genital mutilation (FGM) in African cultures. In Mwaluko's play, the two lovers are an overeducated white Peace Corps volunteer from Chicago (Bobby) for whom patriarchy has long been a target of feminist theory, and an African trans boi (Awino) born to a tribal chief and his second wife in a fictional Kenyan village approximately 250 kilometers northwest of Nairobi.
As a couple struggling to maintain a severely closeted lifestyle, the two women have problems communicating with each other due to their cultural backgrounds. While Awino is devoted to (and respectful of) her tribal ancestors, news reports on the radio point to increasing local tension as suspicion mounts that the presence of a white American lesbian may be responsible for the ongoing drought. Whenever fear causes Awino to shut down emotionally (especially when the two women are in imminent danger), Bobby can't stop talking long enough to take urgent action. At one point, Awino becomes so frustrated that she lashes out at her lover, telling Bobby that she should stop trying to act like Awino's white savior. Obviously, things do not go well for this couple.
San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center (in partnership with the Museum of the African Diaspora) is currently presenting the regional premiere of Hansol Jung's melodrama entitled Cardboard Piano. Set in a Northern Uganda township (with dramaturgy by the aforementioned Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko), the first act takes place on New Year's Eve in 1999 as the world trembles at the prospect of a Y2K catastrophe. The second act takes place 15 years later on a date in 2014 which marks a heterosexual couple's wedding anniversary.
As Julie Andrews might sing, "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start." Two teenage girls with very different personalities are deeply in love. Chris (Megan Timpane) is the daughter of two American missionaries who are preparing to leave their post in a country which is extremely homophobic. Headstrong, cynical, and extremely practical, Chris has decided that her best option is to flee from the church where her father has been a pastor for the past several years, take her African girlfriend with her, and head for somewhere in Europe where they can be free to live an openly gay lifestyle.
Chris's 16-year-old girlfriend, Adiel (Gabriella Momah) is much more romantic, idealistic, and expresses herself in more poetic language. Having decided to stage a mock wedding in which the two young women will recite and record their vows (for purposes of proof and posterity), Chris and Adiel are just about to get started when their world gets turned upside down.
Suddenly, a 13-year-old boy soldier with a gun (Howard Johnson) breaks into the church, bleeding profusely from a head wound. Although the women are terrified, Chris responds in true Christian fashion. After they have tied the boy up and removed his gun, she goes about ministering to his wound. When he awakens, they learn that his name is Pika and, with a soldier from the Lord's Resistance Army hot on his trail, he is every bit as terrified as they are.
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| Howard Johnson (Pika), Gabriella Momah (Adiel) and Megan Timpane (Chris) in a scene from Cardboard Piano (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
Pika fears that, because of the evil deeds he was forced to perform by another soldier, his soul is damaged and cannot be saved. Having been raised by two missionaries, Chris tries to calm him down and reassure him that there are ways he can be forgiven for his crimes. Holding a mock service, she absolves him of his guilt. But when Pika sees the two women kissing, he freaks out at the thought of witnessing the pure evil of lesbianism. When the adult soldier (Dane Troy) enters the church, a scuffle breaks out in which shots are fired, leaving two people dead.
Act II takes place in the same church 15 years later. Peace has been restored locally, and the church's pastor, an African man named Paul (also played by Dane Troy) is preparing a sermon based on the parable of the Good Samaritan. He is also eager to celebrate his wedding anniversary with his wife, Ruth (Gabriella Momah), who is the more practical half of the couple. Unfortunately, there is some dispute about Ruth's loyalty to her friend, Francis (Howard Johnson), a troubled teenager who may have to flee the area because of its homophobic climate.
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| Gabriella Momah (Ruth), Howard Johnson (Francis), Megan Timpane (Chris), and Dane Troy (Paul) in a scene from Cardboard Piano (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
Enter Chris, carrying her father's ashes in a box and hoping to bury them in the church's back yard. After explaining to Ruth that her father was once the pastor of this church, she is introduced to Paul. As the conversation progresses and Paul becomes increasingly agitated, she recognizes a wound on his ear and realizes that Paul is the man that Pika grew up to be. Tempers flare and, at a critical moment, Francis enters the church and becomes a target of Paul's intnesely homophobic bullying. When Chris recognizes him as Adiel's cousin, everything changes.
With costumes by Corrida Carr, lighting by Sophia Craven, and sound design by Mike Post, Tom Bruett has staged the play in a way that delivers a growing sense of suspense and impending dread to the audience. The production benefits from the strong visual appeal of the unit set designed by Devin Kasper. The four-actor ensemble (especially the two men) gives its all in performance. Unfortunately, I found my experience of Cardboard Piano hampered by three clearly-defined challenges.
- As someone who is a life-long atheist, has been openly gay for more than half a century, and is well aware of the repressive conditions facing LGBT people in Uganda, I find myself turning off and tuning out whenever I have to listen to yet another hyper-religious homophobic rant.
- While the playwright's idea of having the same actors portray teenagers in Act I and mature adults in Act II sounds great on paper, it didn't work quite as well as imagined in this production.
- Every now and then an actor may, through no fault of their own, sound uncannily like a more famous talent. P.A. Cooley (who starred in NCTC's productions of The Nance and It's Only A Play) often sounds like Nathan Lane). In Cardboard Piano, Megan Timpane's voice sounds a digital duplicate of Sarah Silverman's, lending an unexpected level of spookiness to her performance.
Performances of Cardboard Piano continue through December 2 at the New Conservatory Theatre Center (click here for tickets). Here's the trailer:
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