Karen Valentine & Gino
With Pride Month comes the end of Milwaukee’s 2022-23 theater season. season For LGBTQ theater goers the final production with a relevant theme was well worth the wait. It was a brief run of Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other staged as an enhanced reading by the Boulevard Theater, directed by Mark Bucher. The enhanced reading with minimal staging and no set has become the Boulevard’s style of late and with each production, it proves the power of the playwright, the actors and director to deliver a message deliver a message without the falderal or expense of a traditional production.
In this case, seven cast members presented a touching story of gay man watching as his female friends marry off to live happily ever after while he remains alone. Yet, he carries on, finding himself in the process. Positive reviews and enthusiastic audience statements attest to Significant Others success, a tribute not only to the show’s combined creative craft but, perhaps even more so, also to the reality that LGBTQ plays that portray sensitive humanity and truth are more potent than those that rely on stereotypes and negativity.
The season’s dishonorable mention goes to the recent Milwaukee run of a touring production of Tootsie The Musical. Based on the 1982 Dustin Hoffmann film Tootsie (a smashing success at the time), for some at least, it may fall into the broader category of LGBTQ relevance. But based on the show’s reviews since its Broadway opening in 2018, giving it the benefit of non-discerning doubt, it can be seen as an artistically light albeit dated evening’s entertainment—it did get 11 Tony nominations, after all, or, perhaps, for those really paying attention, an exercise in transphobia or, more specifically, trans-misogyny. It seems to be yet another case of oblivious cis-myopia for the sake of a gag. As a reviewer for American Theater wrote about Tootsie The Musical’s Broadway debut, “the musical treats the entire concept of drag and of gender as nothing but a joke … the show subtly reinforces the transphobic claim that trans people are liars, pretenders, or fakers.”
This occasion reminded me of the Milwaukee Chamber Theater’s pandemic ZOOM production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet using a “translation” by Play on Shakespeare (POS), a company that translates the bard’s works into contemporary English to allow better accessibility to students. Inexplicably, in the POS edition, translated by Hansol Jung, a Korean playwright, Shakespeare’s use of “villain” becomes “faggot.” The Chamber Theater dutifully played the scene accordingly.
Anyway, under the rubric “Content Disclosure” on the Constructivists’ website, the producers kindly provided a warning about “homophobic slurs” in their production of Halley Feiffer’s 2015 dramedy, I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard. It did not mention any other slurs, racial, religious, ethnic or otherwise, because there weren’t any. Considering the play was set in New York City, that bastion of teeming diversity, it was odd that the portrayal of the play’s bigoted character was so finely focused. That may be because, like the other examples cited, blithe gay bashing is still considered a legitimate dramatic or comedic device. Presuming there was any thought given the matter to begin with, I suppose a dramaturge might argue its appropriateness in our world of ever-increasing homophobia to point out our world’s ever increasing homophobia. Well, I think we get it without the lofty intent.
Oh, and just to be sure, I asked my Gen Z insider what his generation thinks of the “F” word. He simply said “it’s violent” and, at least in his circle, nobody says it.
Come to the Cabaret
On a lighter note, Karen Valentine (aka KV) appeares with pianist Gino de Luca on Monday, June 12, in a special cabaret at the Skylight Theater. “We’ve been nursing an act together for five years. But it requires a piano and finding one has been a challenge. We tried to find locales with an in-house piano but they don’t exist. The Skylight Music Theatre invited me to play and everything fell into place,” KV said. Taking place in the Skylight’s 99 seat Studio Theatre, KV describes the show as singing, piano and banter (with more than a hint of wisdom). “We want to make it look like an afternoon at Judy Garland’s. It’s a gay function. I’m excited about the fact that it’s at the Skylight. With drag under the microscope I’m happy to play there,” KV said, adding “If I had my druthers I’d like to do the show a couple of times a years for Pride and a holiday show.” Perhaps the Skylight will take the hint.
Meanwhile, Theatrical Tendencies, Milwaukee’s only LGBTQ focused theater has returned from its hiatus and announced its 2023-34 season. It opens in October with Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song, followed by Jeff Talbot’s The Submission” in February 2024 and Christopher Durang’s Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike in the Pride month of June. All performances take place at Inspiration Studios in West Allis.
Well, there’s always next season, and, with The Boulevard Theatre and Theatrical Tendencies’ 2023-24 seasons in the offing, we should have a lot to look forward to.
