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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 16, 1994

The Five Lesbian Brothers: The genuine article

Continued from page B-1

With The Secretaries, the Five Lesbian Brothers are hoping for the kind of success that has tended to elude lesbian theatre. "It is funny," they say, "when I think of us, as opposed to Split Britches, which has had a success in terms of grants and academic attention, for some reason we have followed this other path which has been much more trying to make it commercially. And that's the success we have... I guess we pander to the lowest common demoninator."

This last comment provokes shrieks of laughter from the Brothers. Qualifying this, they add, "As much as we do joke about selling out how we're in favor of it-if we did have success we would do the same kind of work we're doing now. We do what pleases us. We don't try to appeal to a certain audience. We are interested in having more visibility and we're really interested in having commercial success and we're really interested in making money as a company and being visible as a company."

They believe, "We're moving as a lesbian theatre group into areas where lesbian theatre hasn't been before." They are careful to remind me that they're "following in the wake of women who really broke ground in lesbian theatre, like Spiderwoman Troupe, Split Britches Company, and Holly Hughes." They also are sensitive to the importance of the attention gay male theatre has gotten recently. They comment on this: "People know a lot more about gay men in the mainstream, sort of perversely because of AIDS. Connected to that people know a lot more about lesbians because lesbians are also very connected to the AIDS crisis."

Clearly the mixed audiences I've experienced at gay theatre in New York indicate a more general audience interest in gay material. A Brother notes, "I don't think we're moving towards a mixed audience. I think a mixed audience is moving towards us. As people become aware that gay and lesbian concerns aren't only for some people. As more people come out, their families are interested in seeing what issues concern them. I think you have, now, a much more sympathetic straight community, which is acknowledging that a lot of theatre is gay, whether it says it or not, and is interested specifically in finding out more about what our specific culture talks about or is interested in."

When I ask them if they feel their work has been influenced by gay camp playwright Charles Ludlam, I'm gently chided for asking such a paternalistic origin kind of question. One Brother says, "I never saw Charles Ludlam. I think I was more influenced by Ethyl Eichelberger, who was influenced by Ludlam. I do feel like we have a camp element about our work that is influenced by the gay male theatre. Sort of subversive camp."

Another Brother continues, "I feel influenced by Split Britches and WOW, who were influenced by, and who had some influence on, what went on at [Ludlam's] Ridiculous Theatre. What's really different about is that we're of a community, of a gene pool. But we really talk about homosexuality. They parody heterosexuality in the work. We're really dealing with a whole different architype in terms of the relationships that are set up. And also, I think, while we have elements of camp, I think there is an emotional level—an emotional reality in our work that we try to achieve that isn't in their work." Another Brother concludes this issue saying, "I think what is important is that we did not develop from them. Maybe we developed parallel. I think what happens a lot of times, because they are men, they're seen as the origin."

The press release calls The Secretaries a work "in which they plummet into the slimy underbelly of office work and female bonding." The action centers around a murderous cult of Slimfast-drinking, high-heel wearing, big-haired secretaries working in the front office of the Cooney Lumber Mill in Big Bone, Oregon. "The fictional town of Big Bone, Oregon is a company town,"the release says. "The secretaries are paid with credit put on their Cooney Credit Card and they spend their earnings at stores like the Cooney Co-op and the Cooney Connexion. Only the best secretaries are hired by the Cooney Mill. There is a weight requirement, a dress code, and all the secretaries can speak and type in several languages. The secretaries take great pride in their work and appearance. They eat only Slimfast products which they consider better than food, since it was invented by a doctor. They are members of an advocacy group called the Cooney Professional Women's Organization. Oh, and once a month they go out and kill a lumberjack."

I must say that I found the work outrageously funny. The five immensly talented women are sharply directed by Kate Stafford. Susan Young's costumes, lingerie and wigs are inspired and hilarious.

"Part of the idea of The Secretaries," one Brother says, "is how is a group of women are viewed when they bond. By the outside world, by the straight establishment? Often it can be threatening. People think, 'Okay, they are a bunch of man-hating lesbians.' A part of me wants to say, 'Yes we are,' and see where that goes. But I don't know if that is what played out fully in this play. I don't think it is." Another Brother continues, "It is an aspect that was sort of a starting point for the writing of this play. Because as a group we're interested in exploring group dynamics and what happens in a group. And then we got interested in how groups of women are viewed and the way they are divided by being labeled cults or being labeled lesbians, or male-bashers, or whatever."

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"There's a line in the play," comments another Brother, "where she says, 'Now all the lumberjacks think we're lesbians because of her.' To me, that's part of what we're talking about. When a group of women gets together to defend an abortion clinic, the first thing people hurl at them is: 'You're all lesbians.' It is how they divide women through homophobia."

Another Brother expands on this, noting, "This society is really interested in keeping women from trusting each other, from confiding in each other. We went to this workshop that was full of straight women and found that for a lot of them this was the first time they were with a group of women. They were really excited and relieved to know that they could talk to women. They were scared at first. It is so interesting that women don't hardly ever get together or get into a group because they are socialized not to."

"People like to think women don't have sex," adds another Brother. "I think that's the other dangerous part about this play, and also Brave Smiles. To say you are a lesbian is acknowledging you're having sex. The culture finds that very threatening. That women have desires and that they go after them.

One Brother noted that quite often with material by women, the press focuses on how it deals with men. "Well," she asserts, "it just makes me furious. The whole idea that you're presenting a woman's perspective so it's automatically-no matter what you say in the piece-against men. What I really love about this play is it's about these five women. There is this guy, Buss [pronunced buzz], who is a 90s kind of guy. He's fabulous. He's been in Peace Corps. He's sensitive. He's really sweet. And we just hack him to pieces with a chain saw. You just can't win, as men. You can't just win against a group of women, fellahs." (There is general laughter here.)

"I think it's the purpose of Buss in the play to parody that," continues a Brother. "I was supposed to audition for this show Fox was doing. It was supposed to be a Saturday Night Live for women. To prepare for this audition, they said, 'Bring some skits about women's issues, non-male-bashing.' Like this was a category! They had to put that out there to clarify it. You can talk about women but make sure you include men. You have to include men, otherwise it's male-bashing. I think that is exactly what killing Buss is about."

When asked if they felt any oppression in the largely male-dominated theatre environment in New York, the group replies in unison and laughing, “Yes!” Then a Brother adds, "Yes. But the Brothers have been extraordinarily successful. I've worked here for years and have seen many men and women doing the same kind of work and the men got tons of attention and the women didn't. So it has been really surprising to me that the Brothers got reviewed in the major dailies and that New York Theatre Workshop is producing us." A Brother comments dead-pan, "Well, we're awfully good. (laughs) We are, we're very good. Even so, because we're lesbians and because we're women, we haven't gotten attention as fast or as widespread as we should have. And that's because it's run by men."

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This leads into a more general discussion of gay and lesbian theatre today. A Brother says, "The reason these plays about gay men are in the mainstream is because they are about AIDS. A producer wants know there is going to be an audience and that to have an audience, the audience has to be able to project themselves into whatever world they are going into. I think that, in terms of sexism, a male is more universal. Everybody knows the male experience. Women have to know the male experience to get through this world. Men do not necessarily have to know a woman's experience to get through this world. This is another reason why women's work gets less of an audience. There is this perception that work dealing with a man's world is going to be about the world at large. It's about agression; it's about big things. Whereas with women, it's about nurturing . . .

"People come to a lesbian theatre piece expecting a certain thing. Expecting stuff that has nothing to do with them. They think, 'I'll have nothing in common with this person. It's a lesbian. They don't have sex. They don't do this. They don't do that.' There are all these perceptions about lesbians. Big number one is to find out that we have a sense of humor. That just blows the lid off." Another Brother continues, "I think that that is really the key. [An audience thinks] 'We're going to be preached to. We're going to be politically correct.' One of the jokes we used to bat around is that we're going to do this piece, Big HeavyHanded Message From Five Angry Women Who Are Too Ugly To [the group's laughter drowns out the rest]: An Evening of Song. That basically sums it up."

"We live in sort of a warped universe, too. We are very out. We're out in our jobs we're out everywhere. Being in New York and doing what we do and calling ourselves the lesbian brothers. I hate to say it, but I've sort of lost touch with the fact that people can't be out all the time in the way that we are. We have such out lives now, that it's hard to remember that ten years ago nobody knew that I was a lesbian."

"We're 100 percent lesbian." [they laugh] "The genuine article."

Postscript: After opening in January in San Francisco, The Secretaries toured the West Coast through May. San Fransisco Chronicle critic Steven Winn praised the production. "Done up with blood-red comic intensity," he noted, "The Secretaries turns the myth of the servile stenographer into a chain-saw massacre horror show. Part feminist critique of internalized stereotypes and part lurid revenge fantasy, the show delivers a truckload of neuroses whittled to fine, sharp points. Tom Orr of the Seattle Times called the production "an inspired hybrid of Working Girl, 9 to 5, and Basic Instinct, with perhaps a dash of The Lord of the Flies thrown in for good measure. Skewering popular misconceptions of women, feminists, lesbians and actors, the often grim Brothers spin a dark fable."

The Secretaries is playing at the New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, 8 September-16 October, TuesdayFriday at 8 pm, Saturday at 7pm and 10pm, Sunday at 3pm. Tickets are $22 and $25. For reservations telephone 212-302-6989.

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