Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays presented by the Attic Theatre. One night only, Saturday, September 12th at the El Portal Theatre, 5267 Lankershim Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91401. Tickets ($60 - $80) still available and can be purchased at www.elportaltheatre.com/events.html or at the El Portal Theatre Box Office (866) 811-4111. Ticket profits go to the Human Rights Campaign.
For most, November 5th, 2008 is a day synonymous with celebration as President Barak Obama was elected the first African American president. But, as the streets cleared of celebrators and the patriotic-colored confetti settled, so settled a sad realization for Californians. Proposition 8 passed, and with it a terrible disappointment for the gay community and its supporters.
Brian Shnipper
Attic Theatre’s Artistic Director Brian Shnipper recalls the devastating moment and his immediate reaction. “I was just standing in my kitchen and I thought, what can I do? What do we do as artists?” Shnipper followed a long-standing tradition: when faced with injustice, art becomes an obligation to catalyze social change and artists become provocateurs. “I knew it was imperative for us as theatre artists to collectively respond and add our voices to the argument,” Shnipper says. “A title popped into my head. I thought about what would I call it, and I thought: Standing on Ceremony.”
Although Standing on Ceremony has evolved into the star-studded event being performed this weekend, Shnipper started out simply by seeking artists who were, like himself, incensed by the Prop 8 decision. “Initially the inspiration was to ask ten gay authors,” Shnipper recalls, but the importance of establishing diversity swayed his opinion. “I thought: No, if we’re asking for equality within a community - and basically we’re asking for equality within the straight community because the gay community is already behind it - then you have to have both gay and heterosexual voices. So we wanted gay men, we wanted gay women, we wanted straight men, we wanted straight women. We wanted a mixture. We wanted everyone to be included. We wanted to hear everyone’s voice.”
Getting “everyone” on board started with going to old friends. “I started to ask who I would want to bring in on this. I asked three authors I had worked with prior.” Of the first three, the two who were ultimately able to join the project were Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Jeffrey Hatcher.
Hatcher’s play, White Marriage, looks at the internal struggle of “coming out” and homosexuality in a family stretched thin by long-standing repression. “Hatcher is doing monologues about a couple,” summarizes Shnipper. “By the end, you get the idea that the husband is probably gay and that their child might be gay. They’re trying to talk to the child to say to him that if this is the situation, you have our blessing, you don’t have to go through this marriage. And it sort of deals with his own marriage and his fear of what his child will become if he goes through the same track he went through.”
Jokes Hatcher of his involvement and piece, “I wrote White Marriage because I was asked by Brian Shnipper, which is good reason enough. But the subject of ‘white marriages’ has always fascinated me, which drives my wife to drink.”
With Aguirre-Sacasa and Hatcher declaring their involvement and support, Shnipper was able to get theatre permission and a venue. Most of the later playwrights came on through agents and managers, but regardless of how they became involved, they all have strong feeling about the cause and the gay community.
Says Jose Rivera, author of Pablo and Andrew at the Altar of Words, “Whenever there are laws that separate people who love, something is wrong. Gay or straight we all speak out because we’re all potential targets. Justice should always be on the wide of love.”
Writer Wendy MacLeod of Straight Talk saw her involvement as the way she could most help: “I wrote the play because I can’t write a giant check (to support gay rights).”
All of the plays being performed were written expressly for Standing on Ceremony, with exception of Terrence McNally’s piece Sur La Mer, which was recently produced in New York. Still, McNally knew he wanted to be involved with the event because of his personal experience. “My spouse and I got married in Vermont five years ago. It was a tremendously moving experience and raised the ante in what was already a great relationship a hundred-fold,” says McNally.
McNally believes legalizing homosexual relationships is vital to establishing equality. “I’m doing this because I believe full civil rights for gay men and women will never be achieved unless our personal relationships are recognized, dignified and legalized,” he says. “Perhaps we cannot end society’s homophobia except by continued social intercourse - but we can definitely end legal homophobia with the stroke of a pen.”
Other plays are similarly civil-rights oriented. Shnipper describes Marcus Gardley’s play One Last March on Rome as “two older black men who are comparing their civil rights moment in the 1960s to today’s civil rights.”
Says Gardley of his inspiration for the piece, “When one group has certain rights and another group are denied these same rights for whatever reason - then peace and justice do not belong to everyone, everywhere, all the time. I am compelled and honored to speak through my words for my community and for all people who believe in peace and justice.”
But audience members need not fear their night will be filled with preaching. While the authors all have a message, Shnipper was careful to pick plays with a diverse range of genre, subject matter, and tone. “It’s a really eclectic mix,” Shnipper assures. “Once I had a certain kind of author, we tried to go towards polar opposites.”
One of the more “polar” pieces is Doubtless by Albert Innaurato, briefly summarized by Shnipper as “two lesbian nuns who want to divorce Jesus so they can marry each other.” Innaurato agrees, “I hoped in a small way to write a totally subversive work. It is my gift to the Christo-fascists who have run and ruined this country, and are longing with their hatred and lies to do more damage.” While the piece satires and is in sharp opposition to blind religion, Innaurato also speaks strongly towards the positive ideals behind any relationships, gay or straight. “My challenge was to balance the loathing I feel with a celebration of the love people of the same sex can feel for one another,” he says, “knowing in that love, a moment of sheer joy.”
Mistress of Ceremonies Coco Peru
Just such a celebration has gathered quite a collection of talent to perform the staged readings. Hosted by Coco Peru, the evening also includes the talents of Jason Alexander, Debra Messing, Peter Paige, Alfre Woodard, and Zachary Quinto, to name a few.
Like the writers, most of the actors were drawn through people they knew. “It was kind of: call your friend and see if they want to do it,” says Shnipper. “Zachary is good friends with Susan Miller and she called him up. Jillian Artmenante, who I’ve known since college, came on immediately because I asked her to. She had acted with Dan Futterman and Amy Brenneman and they’ve all done these kind of events together so she immediately got them involved.” While the draw of working with friends helped, Shnipper doesn’t deny that most came on “because of the cause and because of the gay community in California.”
As all the necessary elements - world-class playwrights, subject-sensitive plays, and astounding talent to read them - come together for the show this Saturday, everyone involved still keeps their priorities straight. When asked what he would like an audience member to take away from the performance, Shnipper doesn’t hesitate: “That marriage is a right that should be afforded to every single person in the country.” Let’s hope such a message is taken from the stage to the polls.
Feature image courtesy of Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays. Story image of Coco Peru by Peter Palladino.
Article by Janet Thielke
