GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

JANUARY 13, 1995

Evenings Out

Two plays of interest in 1995 New Play Festival

by Barry Daniels

The Cleveland Public Theatre's 13th Annual Festival of New Plays continues through January 29. The new festival director, Terry Cranendonk, has expanded the program to four weekends during which staged readings of 15 plays will be presented. Authors are often present and each reading is followed by a discussion with the audience. There are two gay plays in this year's festival which I would encourage readers to support.

Son of Othello by Tom Jacobson is a biting satire of academia combined with a Theatre of the Ridiculous-style tale set in the 16th century. Jacobson, who recieved an MFA in playwriting from UCLA in 1985, is based in Los Angeles. He is a member of the Playwrights in Exile group and has had over twenty plays produced in the past ten years.

The protagonist of Son of Othello is an African-American English professor, Morris Garraway, who is going up for tenure. Although he has the loving support of his partner, Keith, and friend and colleague, Janine, he is up against the deceit and duplicity of senior colleagues, Sheldon Quinn, a closeted conservative Wasp, and Dorie Foshee, an established scholar in AfricanAmerican studies. Jacobson is good at capturing the pettiness and vanity that is all too much a part of academia.

What precipitates the action of the play is a manuscript sent to Morris that appears to be the diary of Antionio, a 16th century Italian monk of Moorish descent. Morris gradually becomes absorbed in translating the diary and shelves his other projects. As Morris translates the work, scenes from it are acted out on the stage. Antonio's adventures are outrageous and often sexual. He is the son of a Moor and a Venetian noblewoman whom the Moor strangled in a fit of jealousy. He is captured by pirates and subjected to bodily mutilation by Murad the Eunuch. He has an affair with Doctor Rodriguez, a converted Jew who is eventually turned over to the Inquisition. He escapes to England where he is seduced by a noblewoman and eventually ends up in a troupe of actors where he ghostwrites plays for Shakespeare.

Fag-Bashing in America comically

explodes conventional thinking about sexual stereotypes

Director Karen Crocheron with Fag Bashing actors Timothy Thomas, left, and Alex Michaels.

The pleasure of Son of Othello lies in Jacobson's artful blending of contemporary satire with the extravagant high camp style of Antionio's story. And Jacobson's premise is not so farfetched, since very little is known about the real Shakespeare, and there is a scholarly tradition of attributing authorship of his plays to other people.

Fag-Bashing in America: A Two-Fisted Play was written by John Beck of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. It is part of a collection of three plays with the general title Gay Plays for Straight Occasions, prompted by the author's desire "to knock away a few chips from our prejudices about sexuality and to celebrate our universal diversity.”

Set at an isolated bus stop near a park in Manhattan, Fag-Bashing in America comically explodes conventional thinking about sexual stereotypes. On the surface it is the story of an attempted mugging in which the targeted victim, a gay ballet dancer, outwits and overpowers two macho Latino muggers whose facades mask more complex sexual personae. It is a sweet story in which character is gradually revealed and in which providence rules. A secondary character, a gay friend of the dancer aptly nicknamed Lunchmeat, complicates and enlivens the action of the play.

BARBARA BODEMER

Director is also a playwright

by Doreen Cudnik Directing Fag-Bashing in America is native Clevelander Karen Crocheron. Crocheron became familiar with Cleveland Public Theatre when she took a playwriting class there about four years ago.

At the same time she became involved with Cleveland Public Theatre, she also met the executive director of Karamu, Margaret Ford Taylor, who took an interest in helping

her to develop her playwriting skills. Crocheron launched into a freelance relationship with Karamu, doing special assignments. Ultimately, her first play. The Fire This Time, was presented at Karamu's first festival of new plays.

A collaborative effort with Ford Taylor in observance of Black History Month resulted in For The Love of the Game, a play and multi-media production about baseball's Negro Leagues. The show ran at Karamu in Continued on next page