Wrestling with Angels, Laughing at Demons

Randy Harrison and Francesca Faridany
 in Angels in America at Berkeley Rep.
photo: Kevin Berne

It would be great if the fact that two major productions of Tony Kushner's two-part drama, Angels in America, could bracket our nation and hold it together. But unfortunately, it reflects the comic chaos then and now, and our confused queries about democracy, death, and justice. On its 25th anniversary, the work continues to inspire, and reminds me of the many people I've lost in the past quarter century.


The story of the play's development is as long and fascinating as the work itself. Here's a Slate oral history of the work's development, which moves from San Francisco to New York, as did my journeys to see the play. A brief quote:

Stephen Spinella with Tony Kushner
in the 1993 Broadway production
of Angels in America

"Tony Kushner’s Angels in America premiered in the tiny Eureka Theatre in San Francisco’s Mission District. Within two years it had won the Pulitzer Prize and begun a New York run that would dominate the Tony Awards two years in a row, revitalize the non-musical play on Broadway, and change the way gay lives were represented in pop culture. Both parts of Angels, Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, put gay men at the center of American politics, history, and mythology at a time when they were marginalized by the culture at large and dying in waves."

Understandably, death plays an important role in the works. But surprisingly, while the main character Prior Walter actually wrestles an angel for answers, and his blessing, the plays are quite funny –hilarious, in fact– because the jokes are paired with serious issues and emotions.

Literary Voices: an appreciation of Mark Merlis and William M Hoffman

Have you ever read a novel only to have the effect of it come back to you like a boomerang that knocks you in the back of the head until the tears spring out?

Such is the case with Mark Merlis' An Arrow's Flight. When I read it almost 20 years ago, I thought it was smart and brilliant. Since the author's death on August 15, I decided to reread it and find copies of his other three novels.

William Johnson wrote this remembrance for Lambda Literary Review. "Merlis’ writing cannily explored the emotional and sexual lives of gay men, in all of their messy, nuanced, and wondrous splendor."

In writing for The Advocate, author Christopher Bram wrote, "His books share a family resemblance: fine literary texture, a keen sense of gay history, a moral complexity worthy of Henry James, and strong sexuality."

 The Washington Post obituary covered his life, and includes this quote:

“I am, of course, a gay man whose... novels are swarming with gay characters,” he once told an interviewer with the website EchoNYC.  “And I have allowed myself to be marketed as a practitioner of a genre called gay fiction. But this is a commercial category, not an artistic one. I write, like anybody else, about how it is to be human.”

Meeting Sam Shepard in a Dream; lofty ambitions and gutted fish

   I met Sam Shepard in a dream last night, my last one before waking, on an open cement flat construction site with poles sticking up. It had been turned into a movie set where I was working on as Assistant to Something. 
   A crew man drilled a hinge on a doorway and it fell over.

   ‘One door, two people,” I muttered as if it were a common safety saying. 
   Oddly, actors rehearsed while hammers were banged on set pieces. 
    The director, finished arguing with someone, huffed off the construction site. Someone called ‘Break,’ and people sat where they were, took food out of lunch boxes.

   One man at the edge of the site/set seemed sad, without a lunch, in a red flannel shirt, rumpled jeans and boots, his craggy face looking disappointed, sitting with his back against a scaffold. I recognized him.

   “Hey, Sam,” I said, “Can I have a hug?”

   “Not a good idea,” he scowled, looked away.

   I knew he was dead, but figured he’d be bothered by my reminding him.

   “You know, thirty years ago, I directed a few of your plays.”

   He didn’t seem to care which ones.

   "I liked the monologues in ‘Action,’ I said. “They worked real good. Once the actor muffed his lines, but got around to it, made the point.”

   “I hate when that happens,” he muttered, looking around, realizing it wasn’t his set, his movie or his play. He didn't seem hungry, but glanced at someone else eating.

   “Hey, can I ask you–“

   Another crew man got up, tripping over Sam’s legs.

   “What was that?” he looked back.

   “That’s Sam. He’s dead.”

   “Right.” 
   The crew man seemed like he was trying to laugh, couldn’t see what he tripped on.

   “Well, better get,” Sam said, and leaped off the edge of the cement flooring, which had become a few floors higher above ground. He just stepped off and disappeared into the wind.

   The other crew man stopped, about the walk away, wavered. “But what did he–”

   “You saw him?” I asked.

   “Saw what?” he seemed confused by himself.

   “Never mind.”

     * * *

I think Sam would have appreciated that dream, since it felt like a scene from one of his plays. People feeling out of place, confused, stunned by the loss of their purpose, or knowing a dark secret, were part of his artistic style. 

Shepard's death has been well documented, and one of his first collaborators, Patti Smith, had some touching remembrances of the Pultizer Prize-winning playwright and understated film actor. Author Don Shewey wrote about being Shepard's biographer years ago, and how the playwright was in a way his alter-ego.

Actually, those plays I mentioned in my dream to dead Sam were preceded by my small production of poems and prose pieces from his first collection, Hawk Moon.  As a sophomore at Kent State University's Theatre Department, I enlisted some actors and musicians to join me in performing most of the collection, with live musical interludes of Rolling Stones songs and other music.

Hail, Mary: Performing as/by Gay and Disabled Jocks

Thomas Gorrebeeck (center) in Andrew Henderaker's Colossal at SF Playhouse.

The intersection of sports, disability and gay love is not an easy balance in art. Few have tried. 

Having taken on this trio of themes a few times (to some good notices, thank you), I was quite interested to see Andrew Henderaker's Colossal at SF Playhouse, which succeeds quite well in this triple-play subgenre.

A three-piece drum corps appropriately accompanies the scene shifts from practice to games, to personal moments in this four-quarter drama. Director John Tracy has assembled a brisk spectacle of heightened drama on a vast Astroturf stage.

Younger Mike, played by the handsome Thomas Gorrebeeck, has strong vigor in his depiction of the hunky football quarterback we wish was gay, and who, it turns out, is. 

Colossal's Thomas Gorrebeeck and Jason Stojanovski

While his deeply closeted on-team affair is hindered, his older self replays his on-field injury while resisting physical therapy and his sardonic trainer. Gorrebeeck leads a tightly choreographed team of actors, a Greek chorus in compression pants and shoulder pads.

Colossal should also be enjoyed for the empathetic yet mostly somber Mike, played by Jason Stojanovki. That he is both disabled and Australian are of note, and fulfill a goal of real representation, even in such a designed style.

Blue Monday: (Your thumbs are too short to box with George)

'Blue Monday' is not just the title of a New Order song.

It was also a failed musical written and composed by George and Ira Gershwin.
That's something I learned, because I was listening.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre is hosting the last performance of musical biography chameleon Hershey Felder and his Gershwin Alone solo show, a biographical song and story performance woven as neatly as the famous music duos music and lyrics.

Hershey Felder brings his hit show to Berkeley Rep 

His mingling of biographical events recreate the composer's life while sharing many of his best work, and a few unusual gems.

 The evening's sing-along was a hoot, with one gentleman getting up onstage as Ethel Merman.

But what was most fascinating, was my view.

(I have to thank the press staff at Berkeley Rep yet again!)

Amazingly, through his finale of a muscular solo performance of 'Rhapsody in Blue,' I had a direct view of Felder's hands at the keyboard, and was starting to remember the chords from the work.

The Play's the Thing

So, I finally finished this project. Here's some PR:

The commissioned stage adaptation of Jim Provenzano's acclaimed debut novel, PINS, is available in paperback.

Reviews excerpts for the stage adaptation of PINS:

“Realistic and engaging.”
– SF Weekly

“Perceptive and honest.”
– SF Bay Guardian

“A fast-paced and imaginative production.” – Bay Area Reporter

“Provenzano shows great skill with naturalistic dialogue and a healthy dose of wry humor.”
– San Francisco Examiner

Breath of Life

More than anything, writing is about sacrifice.

This post isn't about the novel Every time I Think of You specifically, but more the why of writing.

Why did I wake up at four in the morning one cold January night, stirred by a strange series of dream scenes, and begin cranking out the first meager chapters of the book? Why did I dare to start another novel, when four more lay waiting in boxes of years-old print-outs and in multiple back-up versions in my computer? Why am I laboring over another sentimental nostalgic "coming of age" story?

Because the Muse demanded it?

I just got back from seeing Jewelle Gomez's new play, Waiting for Giovanni, at New Conservatory Theatre Center. I love going to see plays there, not only because Artistic Director Ed Decker commissioned the stage adaptation of PINS for a 2002 production. That turned out to be one of the most fruitful, exciting and frustrating experiences in years. And yet, I'm happy about it, and thankful to everyone involved in the production.

But also, I love the feeling of anticipation of walking those few convenient blocks from my home to the theatre, wondering, 'Will I see great art tonight?'

Well, I did.

Let me backtrack. About fifteen years ago, I drove with Jewelle to an East Bay women's bookstore, where both of us read from our contributions to the LGBT science fiction anthology Swords of the Rainbow.

Knowing of Jewelle's acclaimed work, I was a bit daunted, and expectedly, the audience was about 30 women -fans of Jewelle- and one man. I asked to go first, figuring they'd all leave if Jewelle read first, and while they were polite, I was humbled by the comparatively rapt attention they paid to her work, and not mine.

Jump ahead to tonight, and a packed appreciative audience seemed to love her play, based on the writings and parts of the life of the great author James Baldwin, and how he struggled with finishing Giovanni's Room.

By the time you read this, that production will have closed, but no doubt a new one will be staged elsewhere. See it. For writers in particular, although most of us will never achieve what Baldwin did, never face the struggles he endured, it's still inspirational.

The moments that brought me to tears involved the interaction with Baldwin (played to perfection by Wm. Hunter) and his muse, Giovanni (the handsome Liam Hughes). What could have been cliché moments were handled with such deft passion, such...jeez, I'm not doing a theatre review... "critics be damned!"

The point is, I got the point. (Double use of word; rewrite!) You have to listen to your muses. To ignore them, and put the work aside, particularly when it's calling you, begging you to give it life, is a crime of artlessness.

My comparatively tiny story about two boys in 1970s Pennsylvania won't go away. What I'd set out as a mere exercise - to crank out 1,000 words a day until I finished a novel - has now become a twelfth draft, edited (pro bono!) with precision by a dear friend. It scares me to type the wrong words, to swerve from the breath of life downward to mere hot air.

But I will persist, aware, like Baldwin, in my small way, of "the market" while paring my thoughts down to the core of the story. But at my best, I shut out those thoughts, the selfish need for acclaim, ad sales, and just welcome the muses; my boys, Reid and Everett.

So, instead of going out to another bar, where I'm sure to get a free drink, or be on the guest list at another fun nightclub, tonight I'm home, in my sweatpants, returning to the work.