Speaker 1: An important piece of theater premiered in Philadelphia. James Baldwin's
Speaker 1: work is finally coming to life on the stage. We
Speaker 1: got to talk with two of the actors and then
Speaker 1: we went and saw the performance. So here now is
Speaker 1: our interview, followed by our talk about the show.
Speaker 2: Enjoy.
Speaker 1: Coming to you from the Dunion Table at East Arbury Lane.
Speaker 1: Welcome to a very special Pride edition of Full Circle
Speaker 1: the podcast.
Speaker 3: I am your host, Charles Tyson Jr.
Speaker 1: And I'm your Martha Mandrigal, and we have something really
Speaker 1: special going on during Pride Month, incited, I know, to
Speaker 1: Quintessant's theater world premiere adaptation of James Baldwin's groundbreaking novel
Speaker 1: Giovanni's Room has been extended through June twenty ninth. It's
Speaker 1: playing on stage at the Quintessant Theater at the Sedgewick.
Speaker 1: And today we're going to talk to Midgneieth and Jada
Speaker 1: von Reugersberg from the cast. Welcome to the Full Circle Table.
Speaker 4: Thank you for loving us. Look good.
Speaker 1: That's a loaded question in it, well, right in this world,
Speaker 1: in this it's a loaded question. But you're immersed in
Speaker 1: something that I think is really important. James Baldwin, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite queer writers ever. So much wit and
Speaker 1: wisdom and grit, and I what time to revisit it
Speaker 1: and be reminded of the stories he left behind. Yes,
Speaker 1: how's it been?
Speaker 4: It's been great. I mean, I think Midge and I
Speaker 4: both actually get to eat. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 4: My characters are droppers of wisdom in different ways. I
Speaker 4: love that. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yes, a lot of the structure of the play in
Speaker 5: the way that it because the novel is all David's memory,
Speaker 5: and so the structure of the adaptation really has a
Speaker 5: lot of these voices and personalities that he encountered along
Speaker 5: his journey re emerge in non non reality, but as
Speaker 5: witnesses to what he's doing, as reminders to him and
Speaker 5: symbols of those lessons that they give him along the way.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, I love that. So, for those
Speaker 3: of those in our audience who are not familiar, what
Speaker 3: is the story of Giovanni's Room and who do each
Speaker 3: of you portray in the story?
Speaker 4: The story goes a little something like this. You know.
Speaker 4: The spoiler alert is that nobody ends up very well.
Speaker 4: It's kind of tragic in every dimension. But so there's
Speaker 4: a young American named David, and he's kind of a
Speaker 4: central character, but I would almost say he's in he's
Speaker 4: the anti hero because he well you'll see, but he
Speaker 4: is in Europe. He's on a journey to find himself.
Speaker 4: He's been in Paris about two years, and he considers
Speaker 4: himself straight I think, and he's he's just asked his
Speaker 4: girlfriend of two of I think about two years or
Speaker 4: some amount of time that he's been in Paris. He
Speaker 4: met this woman named Hella, and he asked her to
Speaker 4: marry him before the action of the play starts. And
Speaker 4: one of the mysteries that I don't really know the
Speaker 4: answer to is she doesn't say yes. She says, I
Speaker 4: have to think about it. I'm going to go to
Speaker 4: Spain and think about it. While she's in Spain, David
Speaker 4: has a little adventure at a bar called Guillomes and
Speaker 4: Guillom's Bar, where he's sort of I kind of am
Speaker 4: the one. My character's name is Jacques. My character kind
Speaker 4: of like ushers him in. Jack is an older gay
Speaker 4: man and he he takes him to this bar that's
Speaker 4: pretty much that's a gay bar, and at the bar
Speaker 4: is the flag Princess pleaded by Midge and the bartender's
Speaker 4: name Giovanni, and Giovanni is an Italian man, and they
Speaker 4: set they set eyes on each other, and everything stepped
Speaker 4: off from there because he suddenly is deeply and profoundly falling,
Speaker 4: founding himself falling Anni, And while still away, they spend
Speaker 4: I think any number of weeks in bed together there
Speaker 4: in love, and David is there, doesn't have a job,
Speaker 4: so he's just there in this tiny apartment that they
Speaker 4: end up sharing, and Giovanni only leaves, I think to
Speaker 4: go to work, and they are having this beautiful affair.
Speaker 4: But then through a series of letters, you learn that
Speaker 4: he was going to come back, and the pressure is
Speaker 4: on for Duvid to marry her because his father pressuring
Speaker 4: him to come back and start his real life in
Speaker 4: this processed of what are you doing over the dream?
Speaker 4: What are you doing finding it? And so that's where
Speaker 4: the tragedy starts to happen because he sort of out
Speaker 4: of this financial and obviously social pressure in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 4: he's like, maybe I can figure out a way Mary
Speaker 4: Hella and to be with her, and he totally abandons Giovanni.
Speaker 4: He does some bad things to Giovanni leaves him and
Speaker 4: is with Hella without any wonder to Giovanni for a month,
Speaker 4: and then they happened to me will Street, and everything
Speaker 4: goes bad from there and.
Speaker 5: No one ends up happy high queer drawing.
Speaker 1: Well right, and of the time, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the book as I recall was written in fifty five
Speaker 1: and published in fifty six, so you know, very typical.
Speaker 4: Of the time.
Speaker 1: You know, that time when anyone who could be closeted.
Speaker 4: Was exactly exactly and it took a lot of break.
Speaker 4: I mean, there were there have been examples through even
Speaker 4: way before the fifties where people were kind of lived
Speaker 4: out loud. But I would say the majority of people,
Speaker 4: you know, there's a real fear of losing a job
Speaker 4: or not. You know, okay, because that used to happen.
Speaker 1: Regularly. And again, well some would have us go back there.
Speaker 1: I have no intention, yeah, but you know, but it
Speaker 1: was commonplace. So I'm okay with this being tragedy because
Speaker 1: well a lot of it was. And you know, like
Speaker 1: Dad saying time to grow up and leave all that behind,
Speaker 1: it brings it rings just true. I'm also of a
Speaker 1: certain age, and it's and you know this this stuff
Speaker 1: rings true. I know when you said older gay man,
Speaker 1: I'm like Jesus Christ, that's where we are. It's just
Speaker 1: where we are, Like, yeah, okay.
Speaker 5: You know what makes it like fel okay to be
Speaker 5: a tragedy to me is that it's not a tragedy
Speaker 5: because they're queer. It's not a tragedy because he is gay.
Speaker 5: It is a tragedy because he refuses to acknowledge it.
Speaker 5: And that refusal to admit to yourself who you are
Speaker 5: and cutting yourself off from happiness is what ends up
Speaker 5: destroying your own life and all of these lives around you.
Speaker 5: And at the end of the day, he will probably
Speaker 5: be okay because he's he has the most going for
Speaker 5: him going back to America or whatever he wants to do,
Speaker 5: and everybody in his path is the one that suffers
Speaker 5: the most.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's there's there's a lot of letters throughout the show,
Speaker 4: and the very last image of the show, which we
Speaker 4: had to work on as a special for a movie
Speaker 4: a long time, is that he he gets a final
Speaker 4: letter from me from Jacques that he rips up and
Speaker 4: he throws it away. But there's end and the and
Speaker 4: the piece of letter blowback at him, which is a
Speaker 4: sort of beautiful idea that you you can try to
Speaker 4: destroy the evident, you can try to destroy what's happened,
Speaker 4: and you can try to say I didn't I didn't
Speaker 4: mess up anyone's life, I didn't lie to anyone. But
Speaker 4: truth is going to blow back to you.
Speaker 3: Uh always does.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah. But I think part of what's so heartbreaking
Speaker 4: and strange about what happens to David is that he
Speaker 4: he ends up lying a lot, and you start seeing
Speaker 4: through him more and more and more and and just
Speaker 4: you start to see that those lies are destructive, and
Speaker 4: him lying to other people, and him lying to all
Speaker 4: of that treating up.
Speaker 3: And sadly, that's a story that we've seen play out
Speaker 3: in real life way too many times. People hold on
Speaker 3: to the lie and eat you up inside and it
Speaker 3: starts to extend out from inside of yourself and affects
Speaker 3: everything around you and your whole life. Authenticity is the
Speaker 3: only healthy choice, but unfortunately it's not the available choice
Speaker 3: for some.
Speaker 4: People, and for some people's it was not encouraged in
Speaker 4: our families how they were raised. It's a journey to
Speaker 4: find how to speak authentically.
Speaker 3: Which I always think about when people say, you know,
Speaker 3: hearkening back to the good old days talking about this
Speaker 3: time period we think about like not even just queer people,
Speaker 3: but like how everyone must have been walking around with
Speaker 3: so much repression all the time, just like even like
Speaker 3: your your cis had white folks, like because there's so
Speaker 3: many constraints about what is a man, what is a woman,
Speaker 3: and no one is those things like naturally, really I
Speaker 3: don't believe. So it's like that's what we want. We
Speaker 3: want to go back to this place of repression and
Speaker 3: inauthenticity and lying to ourselves.
Speaker 1: Great, the people who want us to go back are
Speaker 1: the ones that always worked out for mostly well, I
Speaker 1: mean they're having the good old day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's easy to be nostalgic because
Speaker 4: because it's it's sort of imaginary. It's sort of like
Speaker 4: when I think back with time that is gone, I
Speaker 4: think it was a great time, but there's no truth
Speaker 4: that it was a great time. And as saying good
Speaker 4: time in your particular right world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I was really cute in the eighties,
Speaker 1: but we were scared to death to have sex. We
Speaker 1: didn't know what's fun, you know, I mean, like we
Speaker 1: had great music, but.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you can't desire a thing that you have. You
Speaker 5: can only desire the thing that you either have yet
Speaker 5: to achieve or the thing that you've lost.
Speaker 4: There, Yeah, there is fair.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say I love the story of
Speaker 1: how this kind of came to be, you know, starting
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, so it's a seventeen year
Speaker 1: journey bringing this to the stage. And I love the
Speaker 1: fact that it looks like eventually Felicia Rashad was involved.
Speaker 4: How cool is that? Right?
Speaker 5: She's creative Consultant, I think is her official title on
Speaker 5: the project. Her and Paul Okball, one of the co
Speaker 5: adaptors and the director have a close relationship, and we
Speaker 5: were lucky enough to get to even have a little
Speaker 5: chat with her in like the last couple previews in rehearsals.
Speaker 5: Just check in with her and help us through some
Speaker 5: difficult moments because some.
Speaker 4: Of the language is.
Speaker 5: Not modern in its point of view, and I think
Speaker 5: especially Hella has this speech about like let me be
Speaker 5: a woman, let me be your little servant and be
Speaker 5: your let me do the things that women are supposed
Speaker 5: to do, quote unquote, And I'll give up cigarettes, I'll
Speaker 5: wear my hair long, I'll throw away my books. I
Speaker 5: will do anything to make this work. Let me be
Speaker 5: a woman, and not to tell the actors story for her,
Speaker 5: but she was having trouble making that makes sense today.
Speaker 5: And Felicious said to let it be poetry that we've
Speaker 5: all been in that situation where we want something so
Speaker 5: badly that we would do anything, We would compromise our
Speaker 5: own desires and our own morals and our own humanity
Speaker 5: in order to grasp at this thing that is being
Speaker 5: pulled away from us. And we mentioned how like back
Speaker 5: in the good old days quote how much of the
Speaker 5: struggle of repression was about masculinity and about femininity. And
Speaker 5: it's not just a struggle of whether to be you
Speaker 5: can be gay or not, but it's also a struggle
Speaker 5: of what it means to be a man, what it
Speaker 5: means to be a woman. David struggles with his manhood
Speaker 5: and in a relationship with another man, he thinks that
Speaker 5: he's being treated like a woman, and he struggles with
Speaker 5: that because it's so unfamiliar, and like, God forbid, I
Speaker 5: get treated like a woman.
Speaker 3: Uh huh, because we know how that goes.
Speaker 1: The worst thing you can call someone, Okay, Mitch, tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about your character.
Speaker 5: Yeah, flaming Princess is a which is a wonderful name,
Speaker 5: and that, like in the novel, is not named. They
Speaker 5: are a denizen of the bar that walks away like
Speaker 5: a princess flaming. And that's kind of where that I've
Speaker 5: done where the title comes from, I know. But in
Speaker 5: the novel it's a much older character and it is
Speaker 5: another kind of wise bend there, I know what you're
Speaker 5: going through, voice using he and him and sometimes it
Speaker 5: in the novel, and but but described as having eyes
Speaker 5: gleaming with mascara and a mouth raging with lipstick, and
Speaker 5: the shirt coquettishly open to reveal a hairless chest like
Speaker 5: it's and there's descriptions about this character's body being not
Speaker 5: quite round in the places that you'd think it would
Speaker 5: be round in the way that they're presenting themselves. And
Speaker 5: big language didn't exist, but it is a trans person.
Speaker 1: It is right, Well, it's en, it's a queen, but
Speaker 1: that's the language that exists.
Speaker 5: And this character in the bar after she sees and
Speaker 5: I'm gonna use she after she sees. Sorry, James, not
Speaker 5: to defy you're your writing, James Baldwin, but I'm gonna
Speaker 5: use she instead of he. She gives him a warning
Speaker 5: that like, I see what you what this little flourishing
Speaker 5: relationship that is starting.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 5: You're gonna go to hell for the way that you're
Speaker 5: gonna treat this man. And it's not said so explicitly
Speaker 5: as you're gonna cause a lot of people harm, but
Speaker 5: it's a boy like that is dangerous for a boy like.
Speaker 4: You, and.
Speaker 5: You're gonna burn in a very hot fire. And he
Speaker 5: tells her to go fuck herself, and she says, no, no,
Speaker 5: I will be just fine because you can't touch me.
Speaker 5: And he, even if he tries to, he gets ready
Speaker 5: to go at her, and nobody else in that bar
Speaker 5: is going to let you touch her.
Speaker 4: Right, I love that? And he runs into on.
Speaker 5: The street later and she's the one that in public
Speaker 5: calls him a fag after he says, you're no, you're
Speaker 5: no girl, You're a freak, and she says, and you
Speaker 5: are a fag.
Speaker 4: Not so different.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've had this conversation, right.
Speaker 5: So it's interesting because in the novel she would be
Speaker 5: an older, wise kind of seer character, and in our adaptation,
Speaker 5: by this is my understanding that the wise, older character
Speaker 5: spot was kind of is already exists in the adaptation,
Speaker 5: and and you can have multiple of those over hours
Speaker 5: and hours and hours of a novel, but in a
Speaker 5: two hour play, that role is there. And what is
Speaker 5: really impactful is David looking and these two characters looking
Speaker 5: at each other as possible reflections of what their lives
Speaker 5: could have been, as they're in a very similar spot
Speaker 5: in life, and Flaming Princess sees David as I.
Speaker 4: Could have been you.
Speaker 5: I could have been a beautiful, blonde, handsome man, and
Speaker 5: I could have been privileged, and there could have been
Speaker 5: successes in my life. My life could have been easy,
Speaker 5: just like yours is. But I admitted to myself who
Speaker 5: I am even though my life is harder, my life
Speaker 5: is worth living now mm hmm. And that part, I
Speaker 5: was brave enough to do it. And you are a coward.
Speaker 5: And because you are a coward, you are going to
Speaker 5: hurt yourself and you were going to hurt so many
Speaker 5: people around you.
Speaker 4: And that's so sad, it is, but that's real. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: she sees them as I told you so.
Speaker 5: I tried to tell you, but nothing more I can do.
Speaker 4: I love that was that tell me? Was it? Easy, hard, fun.
Speaker 5: It is all of those things, Okay. Coming into the process,
Speaker 5: of course, it was very overwhelming to feel this like
Speaker 5: weight on my shoulders of not only the words of
Speaker 5: Baldwin and the pressure doing the novel justice, but all
Speaker 5: so the pressure to do right by my community, in
Speaker 5: our community and represent trans people with dignity and not
Speaker 5: as a caricature and not as some not a man
Speaker 5: in address and not a joke, but as a person
Speaker 5: with dignity and humanity and a person that deserves a
Speaker 5: spot in the world, and a proof that we've always
Speaker 5: been here. We didn't have the language for it, but
Speaker 5: we've always been.
Speaker 4: Here, of course.
Speaker 5: And then going into rehearsals, it becomes very fun to
Speaker 5: then be oh so powerful and feel the flame and
Speaker 5: the fire in that and like put on the accent
Speaker 5: and suddenly you feel a lot sexier, I feel a
Speaker 5: lot more woutful.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's it's a ride. Okay.
Speaker 1: Was the part of the character who is still identified
Speaker 1: as male? How did you deal with that.
Speaker 3: For you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, she does get clocked on the street by another
Speaker 5: character that it's like, what is that not spar off
Speaker 5: to Phantom of the Opera, And it's it's about the
Speaker 5: separation of the character in the acter.
Speaker 4: That's about being h that is taking care of yourself
Speaker 4: in the rehearsal process.
Speaker 5: And that's something we had to make a distinction about
Speaker 5: very early on in our agreements as a community, that like,
Speaker 5: that is not me, that is how you're treating that person,
Speaker 5: but the person the actor that says that on stage.
Speaker 5: I am that's my sister and we're friends and we're
Speaker 5: in the same dressing room together and we giggle and
Speaker 5: kiki and all of that. So I can protect my
Speaker 5: humanity person to person knowing that the character gets treated
Speaker 5: that way.
Speaker 1: No, I love that, And yeah, it's storytelling from a
Speaker 1: different era. And you know that you can do that
Speaker 1: and do it well, good for you.
Speaker 4: And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could. At this point. I
Speaker 1: feel like I have a hard time, right.
Speaker 3: I definitely feel like, you know, if you come to
Speaker 3: the material from that place of honor and respect and authenticity,
Speaker 3: it's going to ring true kind of no matter what happens.
Speaker 3: So I understand, you know, one to make sure that
Speaker 3: certain things are are handled correctly, but when you come
Speaker 3: from a place that place of honesty, I think I
Speaker 3: feel like that will always come through you know what
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 4: And did know?
Speaker 1: You know, I would be remiss if I didn't bring
Speaker 1: the other Martha up because you've been known for from
Speaker 1: years as Martha Graham.
Speaker 4: Cracker from one mark, Yeah, did she make an.
Speaker 1: Appearance from one Martha to another?
Speaker 4: Did?
Speaker 1: Did did that inform this in any way? You've done
Speaker 1: it for so long, and you've just got this amazing
Speaker 1: character that has got a part of She's part of
Speaker 1: you at this point.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, I played this character name
Speaker 4: who as as I said, like, is it like an elder,
Speaker 4: older gay statesman? And uh in that way he doesn't.
Speaker 4: I don't know. He dropped wisdom in a way that
Speaker 4: I hope Martha also does. But he's yeah, no, he
Speaker 4: but he's a businessman. He's wearing a suit. He okay,
Speaker 4: he's a Belgian guy who works.
Speaker 1: I was just trying to fit that in there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was just trying to make sure we got Martha
Speaker 1: into the conversation.
Speaker 4: So one thing that I love about him that maybe
Speaker 4: Yeah did that because he dropped his these wisdom bombs.
Speaker 4: But he's yeah, witty, like he said, he jokes in
Speaker 4: a very sophisticated way with David, and he's like he
Speaker 4: very clearly sees David the main character, and he kind
Speaker 4: of knows how to both like poke at him and
Speaker 4: joke with him, and and yeah, I think he wants
Speaker 4: to flirt with David and be friends with him. But
Speaker 4: he also like, I see how all this lying that
Speaker 4: I see you doing your downfall. Ah. So it's it's
Speaker 4: a fun character because he gets to do a lot
Speaker 4: of different things, and in his wittedness, I would say
Speaker 4: he's related to Martha, but yeah, in other ways he's
Speaker 4: he's just some dude. Okay, that's fair. And it's funny
Speaker 4: because and I play I play both the dad in
Speaker 4: Letters Letters to Date one who kind of reinforces like
Speaker 4: what we're expecting is for you to marry a woman
Speaker 4: so that I can release the me that you keep
Speaker 4: asking for too, because until you married, I don't know
Speaker 4: what you're doing over there. I'm not gonna let you
Speaker 4: waste your money just sing around Europe. So there's this
Speaker 4: like father figure that is the data. And then there's
Speaker 4: this father figure it was just an older game, and
Speaker 4: who was trying to help lead David through the the
Speaker 4: CD Gay Underworld of Paris, you know.
Speaker 1: And I gotta say, and I love to tell this
Speaker 1: story because you know, some of these folks are still around,
Speaker 1: like Sandy Beach. Sandy Beach was a bartender in Atlantic
Speaker 1: City when I was coming of age. You know, once
Speaker 1: I had a driver's lace, my cousin and I would
Speaker 1: go to New York Avenue and that's where we found community.
Speaker 1: That's that's that was it. And you know people like
Speaker 1: like sis Uh, Sonny and and Sandy and they looked
Speaker 1: out for us, you know, they they kind of warned
Speaker 1: us away from certain people or they told them, don't
Speaker 1: leave those kids alone. You know, they were they were
Speaker 1: that almost the oracles that kept us alive, and you know,
Speaker 1: said welcome. Nobody got carted back then. You know, if
Speaker 1: you could get your ass there, come on, come on in.
Speaker 1: And it was a real coming of age, you know,
Speaker 1: and those people really helped shape my understanding of community
Speaker 1: because that's just what they did, you know, was take
Speaker 1: care of us and say you know, they knew we
Speaker 1: were little idiots, and you know.
Speaker 4: They.
Speaker 1: Did their best to make sure we stayed alive.
Speaker 2: That night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Well I'm performing in Atlantic City of July fifth,
Speaker 4: are you what a place called the Anchor. Oh okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: but I think that's also on New York. I don't
Speaker 4: know that, I.
Speaker 1: Is it really I I went there in the daytime
Speaker 1: not that long ago, and I thought, Jesus Christ, it's
Speaker 1: a parking lot.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: It was a gighborhood. I mean it was New York.
Speaker 1: Avenue was queer as fuck, and you know, we had
Speaker 1: well we had Studio six, which was apparently Studio five
Speaker 1: before that, and you know, there were two hotels. One
Speaker 1: was the Chester Camp with the Life of Me, remember
Speaker 1: the other one and the Rendezvous and the Brass Rail.
Speaker 1: You know, it was there was so much community because.
Speaker 3: I missed the clever bar names they.
Speaker 1: Were and the men who were looking for other the
Speaker 1: company of other men didn't have the internet.
Speaker 4: Right, so all of those bars were backed on the
Speaker 4: weekend yet other people. Yeah, right, that was it.
Speaker 1: That was how we found the community. That was how
Speaker 1: we found one another. And you know, and I remember
Speaker 1: being mesmerized by the young trans girls who would, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of come out to the drag shows and hang out.
Speaker 1: And I was just drawn to them because like, how
Speaker 1: are you having all this courage?
Speaker 4: You know, in nineteen eighty three or whatever the fuck
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that is the thing that I miss about
Speaker 3: those spaces, Like you know, I'm coming up in we're
Speaker 3: talking the mid nineties, but you know, you still had
Speaker 3: that space for community and safety that existed, and I
Speaker 3: can't but imagine what it would have been like in
Speaker 3: the fifties when it was literally a place of refuge.
Speaker 3: And that whole aspect of the queer community is all
Speaker 3: but gone because you know, as I'm fond of saying,
Speaker 3: you can just pick up your phone and ordered dick
Speaker 3: like pizza, So why do you need to leave.
Speaker 4: The house, you know, And that's what happens now. I
Speaker 4: mean that happens.
Speaker 1: And you know, a big focus of everything I'd do
Speaker 1: is community building, you know, again, because I think we need.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things I feel so strongly that
Speaker 1: we need is to know each other, yeah, more than again,
Speaker 1: and to write and to find that common ground.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I've been doing Transway forever with Elizabeth Coffee Williams, and
Speaker 1: you know, she was a John Waters actress. She runs
Speaker 1: Transway with me, and you know she talks about going
Speaker 1: down to Baltimore advocating for herself at Johns Hopkins and
Speaker 1: you know the way, and when I got to meet
Speaker 1: John Waters, we talked about exactly that.
Speaker 4: We didn't have all these words. You know, we liked
Speaker 4: each other.
Speaker 1: We saw another queer and come on over and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, and we figured out what to do. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, I know there are very many categories now,
Speaker 1: but you know, so we can wax nostalgic, but then
Speaker 1: we can also say the words help us to know
Speaker 1: one another better and with more clarity. So it was
Speaker 1: this great discussion to have about just how community came together.
Speaker 1: And you know, that was the early seventies. Again, my
Speaker 1: era started in the early eighties, but it was so similar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we just because we didn't talk about it.
Speaker 4: In high school.
Speaker 1: Nobody was out, at least in my little high school
Speaker 1: in South Jersey. Nobody, not on purpose, not as anything. Right,
Speaker 1: If you were out, it it was because somebody told.
Speaker 1: But that's just that was the time. And so when
Speaker 1: we found each other, we found each other and you know,
Speaker 1: so many friendships that we still have from that time,
Speaker 1: the ones that are still with us.
Speaker 3: And that's a question that I have, you know, because
Speaker 3: this work is a period piece, it is a window
Speaker 3: into a certain time, I'm place and mindset and so
Speaker 3: like how familiar and how foreign were parts of How
Speaker 3: how was it getting into this mindset of the characters
Speaker 3: to be in this place that is so restrictive yet
Speaker 3: freeing and colorful environment yet you know, terrifying.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think it was a bigger learning.
Speaker 5: Opportunity for the members of the cast that aren't queer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh wait, oh I'm sure, Oh yes.
Speaker 5: I mean it sounds silly, but like the one of
Speaker 5: the first kind of exercises we did early on was
Speaker 5: like kind of bruising each other in a way of
Speaker 5: just not being afraid to hold eye contact with each
Speaker 5: other and and and say a lot with very little
Speaker 5: and and make those connections navigating through the space together.
Speaker 5: And how the only way to when you can't just
Speaker 5: safely say it out loud, the only way to make
Speaker 5: a connection and show interest is in your body and
Speaker 5: your mannerisms and in eye contact. And they've like said
Speaker 5: cruising and the one one actor was just what right,
Speaker 5: And we're like, oh.
Speaker 6: Up, a little bit, all right, do a little bit
Speaker 6: of queer one of one ill And yeah.
Speaker 1: You know you don't you don't think of what a
Speaker 1: far and concept that probably is too straight people, right,
Speaker 1: what do you.
Speaker 3: Mean not to mention? I imagine like with actors it's probably
Speaker 3: not as big of a deal, but like no shade,
Speaker 3: when you're dealing with people of a certain age, maintaining
Speaker 3: eye contact is like a whole thing. Because I've often said,
Speaker 3: you want to like take down a thirty year old,
Speaker 3: look them in the eye and don't look away. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. So I imagine like that in
Speaker 3: itself was an exercise and courage totally.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, you didn't get to answer. Well.
Speaker 4: I was thinking about when I was coming up in
Speaker 4: the in the mid early to mid nineties, we had
Speaker 4: a name for it, which is which it was kind
Speaker 4: of one two look. It was always like passing each
Speaker 4: other look and usually like the count was one to
Speaker 4: look or you're like, oh no they didn't look. I was.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, that when I would be walking on
Speaker 4: you know, walking out on the streets for no reason
Speaker 4: and past someone and you both look back. But that
Speaker 4: was grinder. That was like, oh that was grinder. That
Speaker 4: was it was like, yep.
Speaker 3: Then you have to decide how badly you need to
Speaker 3: go in this direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't ever mean to suggest we had more decorum.
Speaker 1: I just mean it things happened differently.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: You couldn't like all your best photographs and post them
Speaker 4: up and be like here order the pizza happening in
Speaker 4: real time. See you you are more all right? But anyway,
Speaker 4: I was going to just mention our fantastic costume designer.
Speaker 4: Her name is Colleen and he one of the things
Speaker 4: that she did, she and I remember her before we
Speaker 4: met her. She got all these photographs of her kind
Speaker 4: of reference points for each one of our characters, and
Speaker 4: I felt like that was a really helpful kind of
Speaker 4: gallery for each one of us to be like, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: and a lot of them she took from a talented
Speaker 4: mister Ripley aw that movie and talented mister Ripley with
Speaker 4: Matt Damon. Anyway, there's that because that's sort of the
Speaker 4: same time period and also positiveness. So so yeah, there
Speaker 4: she she had photographs or yeah, reference points for each
Speaker 4: one of our characters in that was really helpful in
Speaker 4: terms of getting us getting getting a window into that
Speaker 4: world that era. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I here all the time, like you you look
Speaker 3: yourself in the costume and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: that last little piece of the puzzle for the character
Speaker 3: locks into place, like oh, there they are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well and that's you know so right.
Speaker 1: So many of those elements that non theater people don't
Speaker 1: even think about that are part of the storytelling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the costumes, the lighting, you know, sometimes so
Speaker 1: minimal backup, but we're always storytelling, you know.
Speaker 4: That's what I love it. I always love it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and there's a magical not to give it away, but
Speaker 4: there's I think in the set time there's an incredible
Speaker 4: as a bed in Giovannion and the bar in it,
Speaker 4: both bars they visit. So it's really because it wasn't
Speaker 4: a very big it's kind of so it's elegant kind
Speaker 4: of that. Yeah, and I think really makes the most
Speaker 4: of this one piece that has wheels. It's actually kind
Speaker 4: of amazingly trick piece, but it can be tipped up
Speaker 4: to be the bar and down to people bed's. I
Speaker 4: love that.
Speaker 3: That is one thing that I'm looking forward to seeing
Speaker 3: how the space is used. Because we were there once
Speaker 3: before we saw a production of a fello.
Speaker 1: Okay that's what I thought, and that was a.
Speaker 3: Very minimal which you can get all the gay othello,
Speaker 3: all male, all male, excuse me?
Speaker 4: Well and pretty it was.
Speaker 3: It was different than what I was expecting, because when
Speaker 3: I read an all male a fellow set against the
Speaker 3: military in.
Speaker 1: The nineteen nineties, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: I think it was earlier than that. It was I
Speaker 3: conjured up a different backdrop than what they meant. Was
Speaker 3: basically like a traditional performance of Shakespeare in which the
Speaker 3: men also played the women characters, which was also fabulous,
Speaker 3: just a little different than what I was expected.
Speaker 4: So different.
Speaker 1: How important to each of you is the retelling of
Speaker 1: queer history today?
Speaker 4: So important? I mean I think of, you know, having
Speaker 4: come up in the nineties. I think of the generation
Speaker 4: that lived through the beginning of the age crisis is
Speaker 4: really like these saints that I the word is not,
Speaker 4: I sort of and in awe of that strength and
Speaker 4: that ability to to withstand the political climate, the the
Speaker 4: the crisis of mortality, to tap all around you. The
Speaker 4: number of funerals that they would attend any given month week. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just uh, I mean, that's just one example. But
Speaker 4: that first generation that with the AIDS crisis, I think
Speaker 4: of as my heroes and my maybe my angels and
Speaker 4: I have other you know, other gay um hum icons
Speaker 4: and other eras Federico Garcia Lorca, a poet in Spain
Speaker 4: and and he was shot at the beginning of the
Speaker 4: of the fascist regime. There both are being outspoken liberals
Speaker 4: and for being gay. So yeah, they're there. It's so
Speaker 4: important to know this all happened and how we got
Speaker 4: to the perhaps tenuous but like much more uh, the
Speaker 4: firmer that we're on now. I think it didn't happen magic, No,
Speaker 4: it didn't. And you know, I always say.
Speaker 1: When when someone says these kids today, I'm like, we
Speaker 1: raised brats in one fucking generation. Who else can say that?
Speaker 4: Good? And good?
Speaker 1: I want you to have a sense of entitlement. I
Speaker 1: want you to have a sense of place, you know.
Speaker 1: I want you to know that you belong. You know, Midge,
Speaker 1: you said that you know that idea, and it just
Speaker 1: it hit with me because you talked about not a
Speaker 1: man in address and being taken seriously and not being
Speaker 1: a joke was probably the most important thing to me.
Speaker 1: That was what I was most afraid of, was being
Speaker 1: a joke, was losing all sense of place in this
Speaker 1: world or voice in this world. Because I saw so
Speaker 1: much erasure, and you know, we have to deal with that.
Speaker 1: We've got to peel back those fucking layers to come to,
Speaker 1: you know, our sense of selves. And part of it
Speaker 1: is history, part of it is knowing it. Part of
Speaker 1: it is understanding, you know, what came before.
Speaker 5: And in retelling these stories, it's so important to show
Speaker 5: the ugly parts.
Speaker 4: M Oh yeah, Like.
Speaker 5: I admit to getting scared of like what if they
Speaker 5: see an imperfect version of our community, They're going to
Speaker 5: think that we're and it's like, well, but we're humans
Speaker 5: who are all flawed, and we can tell a story
Speaker 5: about people that make mistakes and do shitty things to
Speaker 5: each other without having to like pause it and comment
Speaker 5: about like just a reminder that this is not an
Speaker 5: okay thing to do.
Speaker 4: We can have enough.
Speaker 5: Media literacy to understand, like that is a person behaving badly,
Speaker 5: and I'm supposed to condemn.
Speaker 3: It the views of this homosexual.
Speaker 1: Somebody asked me one day. It was a stupid It
Speaker 1: was one of those stupid, pointless conversation with someone and
Speaker 1: they said to me, what about folsome you know, meaning
Speaker 1: the street fair? And I was like, I looked at them,
Speaker 1: like you're I said what about serial killers.
Speaker 4: You first, what the fuck.
Speaker 3: Since we're just like saying randomness are saying but it's
Speaker 3: like whatever someone perceives as the worst of.
Speaker 5: All consenting people that are agreeing to be there where
Speaker 5: there are all adults that are consented to be in
Speaker 5: this environment.
Speaker 4: Oh no exactly, but it.
Speaker 1: Was in that person's mind that was like debauchery and
Speaker 1: the worst thing they could think about. You know, I
Speaker 1: guess at the moment and I'm like, what what are
Speaker 1: you doing? But that is what people do, is you know,
Speaker 1: we're all supposed to answer for our biggest mess, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't work in the reverse, and I want to
Speaker 1: I still want to know why.
Speaker 3: Well, and then you figure like they love to boil
Speaker 3: down the queer community to anatomy and sex acts, to
Speaker 3: which like, now my response is, oh, do you cease
Speaker 3: to become straight the moment after you come? Is that
Speaker 3: how this works? You know? Like, but because you you
Speaker 3: they have But if your entire way of being is
Speaker 3: encapsulated by by a sex act, then you know, then
Speaker 3: you start thinking about all the different kinds of sex
Speaker 3: acts and and what's the worst kind? And and this
Speaker 3: this whole like thing of like what makes a queer
Speaker 3: person is built up of a ship that's not any
Speaker 3: of your business. Uh be things that probably don't actually
Speaker 3: exist except because of the Internet, probably do now.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: But it's it's just crazy. We have this puritanical view
Speaker 3: of who we should, what makes a good person, and
Speaker 3: what makes a bad person. And I really wish we
Speaker 3: could get to this place where, for instance, public figures
Speaker 3: can't be toppled because they had sex with someone, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. Like, it's really it's really crazy,
Speaker 3: the way our fear of sex, our fear of enjoyment.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well back to the whole fulsome comment, it's like,
Speaker 5: if you define a community by the type of sex
Speaker 5: they're having, then that community is also going to start
Speaker 5: defining itself in more nuanced ways by the type of
Speaker 5: sex they're having. And if you make sexuality the entire
Speaker 5: identity of a group of people, then they're going to
Speaker 5: find ways to make you look at it as a
Speaker 5: much more interesting, colorful thing what you think it.
Speaker 3: Is, which there can also be a beautiful thing, like
Speaker 3: you know, that's how we get folks walking around in
Speaker 3: broad daylight with leather dog masks and and and and
Speaker 3: butt plugs with tails coming out of them as they
Speaker 3: walk down the street. Right, we are nothing if not created.
Speaker 3: You can try it, you might like it, that part,
Speaker 3: and that's what scares the hell out of them.
Speaker 1: I wish I could remember who first said that straight
Speaker 1: people have way more gay sex than gay people because
Speaker 1: there's more of them.
Speaker 3: And they went, yeah, there's there's more straight butts to
Speaker 3: do butt stuff with.
Speaker 4: Anyway, that's what is entirely.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, I know, right, they say, we
Speaker 1: we think everyone's again, I'm like, well, there's spaghetti straight.
Speaker 4: You know, there's what's I guess this is true. They
Speaker 4: are uh straight until you heat it up spaghetti. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I feel slow.
Speaker 1: Spaghetti straight. I love that. I love that this is happening.
Speaker 1: I love that it's happening. I want to see more
Speaker 1: of you know, this kind.
Speaker 4: Of work.
Speaker 1: Treated with respect, right, treated with you know, queer people
Speaker 1: telling queer stories so important that there can't be straight
Speaker 1: cast members obviously.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's great, because you know, the best
Speaker 3: way to come to a place of agreement and empathy
Speaker 3: is to step inside the shoes of another person and
Speaker 3: get a different viewpoint. And if more and more people
Speaker 3: would just be willing to do that. Can you imagine
Speaker 3: the world that we will be living in? Yeah, not
Speaker 3: this one.
Speaker 6: And if we're going to use some argument that only
Speaker 6: gay people can play gay people, all of that, I'll
Speaker 6: let you have that for a moment and counter it
Speaker 6: with both David and Giovanni are characters that at one
Speaker 6: time claimed to be straight. Of course, Giovanni had a girl,
Speaker 6: he had a kid, Spoilers abound.
Speaker 5: David claims to be straight, has a fiance. Like, actually,
Speaker 5: it's a more authentic way to tell the story to
Speaker 5: have these in a way, to have these characters played
Speaker 5: by straight man that just so happened to experience some
Speaker 5: of the magic they might have missed and in distance,
Speaker 5: I agree.
Speaker 3: With you, And that's a thing like obviously it wouldn't
Speaker 3: work with this particular time period. But just like I
Speaker 3: watch a movie that takes place in the eighties and
Speaker 3: I'll sit there and go, you know, if they had
Speaker 3: a cell phone, this movie would be three minutes long.
Speaker 3: Just like I look at certain situations and I go,
Speaker 3: if we would just admit that bisexuality exists, this whole
Speaker 3: story would be irrelevant.
Speaker 1: Well it would, And I think queer people have to
Speaker 1: be very involved in queer storytelling.
Speaker 4: How's that?
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, it's essential, and I can I can point
Speaker 1: to it from three miles away when they're not.
Speaker 4: Nobody would say.
Speaker 5: Black gay man is our director, and another gay man
Speaker 5: is another co adapter, like and and there are lots
Speaker 5: of queer people on the creative team that are overseeing this.
Speaker 4: Telling, and.
Speaker 5: We'll allow an ally in there. Ever, so every once
Speaker 5: in a while if we have to.
Speaker 4: If we have to, that's fair. It would be very
Speaker 4: weird for this. I was imagine this play being directed
Speaker 4: by a straight man, and I'm like, that would be
Speaker 4: so good, right, right. Part of why I think the
Speaker 4: David and Giovanni romance is so feel so legitimate is
Speaker 4: because they were sort of guided through that by by
Speaker 4: the directors, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's just where I get hung up.
Speaker 4: What the one. I'm still annoyed the whale.
Speaker 3: I was waiting for it, the whale.
Speaker 1: First of all, we could not find a gay man
Speaker 1: of size, really, really, I mean come on. And it
Speaker 1: was the acceptance speech that got me, because what Brendan
Speaker 1: Fraser tried to say was this is universal storytelling. No
Speaker 1: the fuck it is not. Not one of you have
Speaker 1: ever lost your job because of who you are. Not
Speaker 1: one of you have ever lost your family because of
Speaker 1: who you are, and until and unless, No, this is
Speaker 1: queer storytelling, my dear, And the fact that you don't
Speaker 1: know that is why you shouldn't have the role.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's my thing. Like, I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that straight actors should never get to play queer roles. However,
Speaker 3: queer folks should always get right of first refusal, bam, period.
Speaker 1: That And again, you know, it takes kind of everybody.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't like seeing, you know, trans characters
Speaker 1: portrayed by sis people without trans people right there, at least,
Speaker 1: I don't like it. And again, there's enough of us
Speaker 1: that it shouldn't be impossible to let us tell our story.
Speaker 1: You find our story so fascinating, but you don't want
Speaker 1: us telling them the fuck?
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 1: So we have to make sure they're told otherwise it
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, right, And that's what I think is happening here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank goodness, it comes back authenticity.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, Like, not only does authenticity come across loud
Speaker 3: and clear, so does the lack of it even more so,
Speaker 3: I know it's just yeah, like I was in a
Speaker 3: short a couple of years ago, and my character was
Speaker 3: queer as well, and there was like one little line
Speaker 3: of dialogue and I had to like, I told us,
Speaker 3: and I'm changing this line because I wouldn't say that.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't say that, like this is when does this
Speaker 3: take place? Yeah, no, one's gonna say that right now.
Speaker 3: You know, you need you need that that reality. Otherwise
Speaker 3: that's where caricature comes in.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: You know. Like we went to a production of Kinky Boots, Oh.
Speaker 4: That and it was unfortunate and.
Speaker 3: Gay minstrel was the term we walked away with. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, like the choreography, Like even the choreography it's
Speaker 3: like have you medicaleer person like ever in your life?
Speaker 3: Like they literally had be walking across the stage going
Speaker 3: it was a it was a local I'm not exaggerating, yeah,
Speaker 3: straight up, Like and I'm sitting there twitching and then
Speaker 3: I look over at her and you were like all
Speaker 3: but rocking back and forth. I don't know how the
Speaker 3: second act was your your double yo, yo, right right
Speaker 3: there it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it just happened.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about we had gone to a talkback
Speaker 1: and it was meant to be a talkback, you know,
Speaker 1: of a one woman show that was still very much
Speaker 1: in the writing. And you know, I said to the director,
Speaker 1: a woman would never have said that you wrote, or
Speaker 1: actually the writer, I said, you need a woman to
Speaker 1: check that dialogue, because there's not a woman who would
Speaker 1: focus where you focused in that entire monologue.
Speaker 4: And the actress went and I hope, but it is
Speaker 4: now better.
Speaker 1: But it was just like that, you know, the part
Speaker 1: of the story you thought was important was from a
Speaker 1: male perspective. Yeah, that, and it so it rang in
Speaker 1: authentical way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I've this is true for writing trans
Speaker 5: characters as well. That I've definitely read roles that are
Speaker 5: trans women that were pretty obviously not written by a
Speaker 5: trans woman. They were written by a trans masculine person,
Speaker 5: because it just it is a different experience. Yes, we
Speaker 5: are in community and we share a lot of the
Speaker 5: same struggle, but there's also stuff that is could it's
Speaker 5: just not the same. And the things that trans women
Speaker 5: experience are very different than the things that trans men experience.
Speaker 5: And you can tell that you are writing about an
Speaker 5: experience that you do not understand, even if you want to.
Speaker 5: And we appreciate that you're trying and giving us the representation.
Speaker 5: But also when I tell you, I don't think that's
Speaker 5: what a trans person, when a trans woman would be
Speaker 5: so worried about, I think there's some other stuff that
Speaker 5: would be more important. I need you to listen to
Speaker 5: me and be willing to understand that.
Speaker 3: That's the sticking point right there. We need to listen
Speaker 3: to each other because we get caught up in our
Speaker 3: own egos and like, well, I know what I'm doing, and.
Speaker 4: But do you?
Speaker 3: And it looks like you ain't got no friends, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, like no one to tell you
Speaker 3: who you know to steer you, and you need to
Speaker 3: We need to be able to listen to each other
Speaker 3: if we're going to be able to tell or experience
Speaker 3: each other's stories.
Speaker 4: It's I find it's always so fascinating and so complicated
Speaker 4: because here we are, we're doing a play written or
Speaker 4: we're telling the story that was that is ostensibly only
Speaker 4: with white characters written by black man. So it's also
Speaker 4: like you could say, like, how well is he going
Speaker 4: to tell this story? I do think there's you know,
Speaker 4: it's free complicated and you of course, and I don't
Speaker 4: want to live in a world where people can only
Speaker 4: write about their own experience. But again, I think it's
Speaker 4: about the amount of research, the amount of care, the
Speaker 4: amount of listening. As you said, it goes into into
Speaker 4: the storytelling.
Speaker 3: Right, And you can always like there's a difference between
Speaker 3: being well meaning and being respectful. You can always tell
Speaker 3: when someone is coming from a well meaning place because
Speaker 3: it's like, Okay, that was cute, But when it comes
Speaker 3: from a respectful place, you want to be like, oh damn,
Speaker 3: you do have queer friends, you do have black friends,
Speaker 3: because that was real. And you know, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to you know, and I'm not going to pretend that
Speaker 3: when I first saw that Giovanni's Room was coming that,
Speaker 3: you know, when I clipped on the promo trailer and
Speaker 3: I saw the cast, I was like, huh. So I
Speaker 3: immediately did little research as to who was behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, okay, right, I'm good again.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 3: I trust I mean, you know, I trust quintessence anyway,
Speaker 3: but you know, yeah, I gotta check.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think this came up.
Speaker 5: We had a talkback last night at time of recording,
Speaker 5: and also in the audience was a book club I
Speaker 5: don't remember the name.
Speaker 4: Of it.
Speaker 5: But it was a book club of mostly black men,
Speaker 5: and one man asked, like, what was it like to
Speaker 5: be speaking as a but as white actors speaking the
Speaker 5: words of a black man. And the answer that I
Speaker 5: had was that it white people often write characters that
Speaker 5: are white by default.
Speaker 4: M hmm.
Speaker 5: And it takes sometimes an outsider's.
Speaker 4: View of.
Speaker 5: White whiteness to very specifically and intentionally right white characters.
Speaker 4: That bring.
Speaker 5: It would be a much different story if David was
Speaker 5: not white, the experience of privilege and white exceptionalism, American exceptionalism,
Speaker 5: it would be a very different story if David was
Speaker 5: not a white man.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: You're right, yeah, absolutely, And that was I mean, James Baldwin,
Speaker 1: if he was anything, he was a mirror.
Speaker 4: You know, he held a.
Speaker 1: Mirror up to white America at the time, and you know, pointedly,
Speaker 1: and you know, with great use of the language, insisted
Speaker 1: we take another look and then another look.
Speaker 5: Yeah the I mean, and have it written next to me.
Speaker 5: But I was rereading the introduction to the novel last
Speaker 5: night after the talkback, and it talks about Baldwin being
Speaker 5: incredibly intentional about making this a story about sexuality and
Speaker 5: not about Baldwin's Blackness.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm, as it intended.
Speaker 5: To make people focus more and not attribute people's actions
Speaker 5: to race rather than sexuality. And I'm not doing it justice, everybody,
Speaker 5: go read it for yourself. And but I just found
Speaker 5: it fascinating to think about how intentional every little choice
Speaker 5: is in the novel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I imagine it would be easier to view
Speaker 3: the text in that way now than then, just because
Speaker 3: we have more of an idea of intersectionality now, not
Speaker 3: enough people, but you know, that's just at the point.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I was actually sitting here thinking, like you need,
Speaker 3: it's interesting, like who could write for white characters more
Speaker 3: than better than a non white person because no one,
Speaker 3: ironically white people understand whiteness the.
Speaker 4: Least Yep, that's true.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's it's interesting.
Speaker 2: Just thought.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, one of the reasons we started
Speaker 1: this podcast was because of the conversations we've always had
Speaker 1: as a couple, I mean, and the same ones we
Speaker 1: had when we were friends for ten years before we
Speaker 1: finally pulled it together.
Speaker 4: You know, when we would check in, we would read
Speaker 4: or hear or see a story.
Speaker 1: And say, I don't know how to process this, you know,
Speaker 1: talk to me and talk about how you're seeing this
Speaker 1: or how does this feel? Because I don't know, and
Speaker 1: it's happened so often. We were like, we're kind of
Speaker 1: interesting in that. So let's let's let's sit a microphone
Speaker 1: in front of us and see what happens.
Speaker 3: Right, Because I might get a visceral reaction about something,
Speaker 3: but I might be projecting my own feelings onto it.
Speaker 3: So I'll ask her and she'd like, well, yes, but no,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. That's and that's we got
Speaker 3: to talk to each other, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the thing we try to do the most.
Speaker 1: I want to ask each of you in just a
Speaker 1: couple of words. You know, we will be seeing the
Speaker 1: play tomorrow night, and so uh when this comes out,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll talk about it a little bit. Uh
Speaker 1: for the episode. What do you want me to leave with?
Speaker 4: Dito? Oh? I always have trouble with this question because
Speaker 4: I'm always like, I would not want to prescribe to
Speaker 4: you what what you would leave? Okay? How about what
Speaker 4: do you want me to not miss? M Is that
Speaker 4: a better question? Okay? Okay, I think it's It goes
Speaker 4: back to a little bit what we were talking about before.
Speaker 4: It's about the sinister nature of lying to yourself and
Speaker 4: lying to others and how those are those are related,
Speaker 4: and how this story speaking of how this could have
Speaker 4: been prevented, Like there's a story where the lying brings
Speaker 4: everyone to the down public. We'll see. But so, yeah,
Speaker 4: I think it's a story I wouldn't want you to miss.
Speaker 4: This is a story about someone who lies in a
Speaker 4: very particular circumstance and in a weird way. I don't
Speaker 4: totally I don't think of him as a villain because
Speaker 4: I think it's it's the time that he was living in.
Speaker 4: And also we've all lied before, so to me, it's
Speaker 4: a kind of it's like in a way, in a
Speaker 4: way that all tragedies are a little bit warnings as
Speaker 4: a human hinders like oh the danger of not speaking
Speaker 4: the truth to yourself and us being the truth to
Speaker 4: other people. Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it can hurt those involved and or
Speaker 1: destroy a person from the inside.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, I'm going to be looking for that, Madge.
Speaker 5: Either question, I'm going to stick with, what do I
Speaker 5: want you to leave with?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 5: And I would say I do not want you to
Speaker 5: leave necessarily with empathy, but I want you to leave
Speaker 5: with understanding. I don't want you to empathize with David,
Speaker 5: because he is does very bad things, but I want
Speaker 5: you to leave with an understanding of what leaves it's
Speaker 5: a person to behave that way and to make the
Speaker 5: decisions that he makes, and with that understanding and ability
Speaker 5: to like recognize maybe that tendency in ourselves and that's
Speaker 5: the best way to stop ourselves from making the same
Speaker 5: mistakes work.
Speaker 4: I love that. I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, Giovanni's right through the twenty ninth of June.
Speaker 1: We're going to get this episode out as quickly as
Speaker 1: we can. I'm excited and hopefully, Yeah, send some send
Speaker 1: some folks your way. I want to thank you both
Speaker 1: for taking this time with us.
Speaker 5: Yes, thank you for having us. Been such a lovely
Speaker 5: privilege to be here.
Speaker 1: Hey, come back, keep us informed anytime, right, Yeah, time.
Speaker 3: We can talk about other stuff.
Speaker 5: We can, we can, and Hey, bring your straight friends
Speaker 5: see the show and bring your straight friends.
Speaker 4: Yes, I want to hear them, but I was gonna say,
Speaker 4: I'm curious to hear what you.
Speaker 5: Also, we can hear you in the audience, and we
Speaker 5: want to Yes, who holler, giggle, gass, Okay, don't be polite,
Speaker 5: we want to hear it.
Speaker 3: Oh see you you've done messed up, because that's the
Speaker 3: kind of thing go where I am truly thank you
Speaker 3: both so much. Thank you, and you know, have a
Speaker 3: blessed day and we will hopefully see you after the show.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you, Tudulu.
Speaker 1: Bye, blown away, right, blown away. James Baldwin's work in
Speaker 1: Giovanni's Room is not.
Speaker 4: Light now, that needs to be said.
Speaker 3: As soon as the final que in Blackout hit, I
Speaker 3: believe I said to you, Yeah, Giovanni's Room is not
Speaker 3: a laugh riot.
Speaker 4: No, it is not, and it's not meant to be right.
Speaker 3: I mean I knew that going in.
Speaker 4: Of course we did.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of pieces I forgot from the book
Speaker 1: and was reminded of. But I'm gonna say, as an adaptation,
Speaker 1: brilliant work.
Speaker 3: I admittedly have never read Giovanni's Room in its completion.
Speaker 1: I did, but it's been so long ago, right.
Speaker 3: I've read chunks. I know the plot, I know what happens, right,
Speaker 3: I know what it's about. But that's not the same
Speaker 3: as seeing it come to life on the stage. And
Speaker 3: it was very cleverly done, I believe.
Speaker 4: Is what I said.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, the staging was amazing. There was some really
Speaker 1: fun work there in terms of staging. In terms, yeah,
Speaker 1: the acting was phenomenal. They used everything to tell the story. Yes,
Speaker 1: and the acting was was really good. It just good.
Speaker 3: Dido and Midge were fabulous.
Speaker 1: They were I loved both of their characters. They were like,
Speaker 1: you know, the queer truth tellers. They were the oracles.
Speaker 3: Actually not even both their characters, because they both played
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well they played he Dido jed. Yeah, I believe
Speaker 4: Madge character.
Speaker 1: No, I think Midge only played okay, that character through
Speaker 1: the through the show at any rate. Well staged, well done.
Speaker 1: Worth seeing. Definitely, there's a reason it is sold out
Speaker 1: until the last week of June. There are tickets available
Speaker 1: now for the final week and get one.
Speaker 3: I love the way they were able to both just
Speaker 3: put the text in its like full form on stage
Speaker 3: as well as perform the action like it's. The way
Speaker 3: it was done was organic and not pretentious, because it
Speaker 3: could easily end up going that way, because James Baldwin
Speaker 3: can lean up against pretentious in his writing style a
Speaker 3: little bit. So I think the way they.
Speaker 1: Are wicked, smart, and annoyed. Often reads that way.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's brilliant work regardless, but I'm just saying.
Speaker 1: No, it was handled as well, I think as it
Speaker 1: possibly could have. D was a contributor. I think every
Speaker 1: aspect of this was respected. James Baldwin's work, his intent,
Speaker 1: and his storytelling, you know, was respected. And yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1: Parts of it are not easy to watch.
Speaker 3: Nor were they meant to be.
Speaker 1: But the nineteen fifties were not easy to live in
Speaker 1: if you were queer, right, and struggling with all of
Speaker 1: the societal pressure that came with the time. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we feel that tension. I think we feel that, right.
Speaker 3: You feel the repression, the angst. It was sexy, it
Speaker 3: was dangerous. I love how the character of Hella. She's
Speaker 3: not stupid.
Speaker 1: No, she's not stupid, and she's.
Speaker 3: Not far from the far from that actually, right. And
Speaker 3: but I mean in terms of like a as a
Speaker 3: as a woman, she's brilliant, right, But I mean in
Speaker 3: terms of like, as a straight woman marrying this man.
Speaker 1: She wasn't. She knew what was well, And the actress
Speaker 1: talked about that how she came into character because it
Speaker 1: was hard to say the words the character said.
Speaker 3: You know, in.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty five, these were nineteen fifties words about womanhood,
Speaker 1: and yet the portrayal was brilliant. Yeah, it was really good.
Speaker 1: It's really good. I love seeing his work come to life.
Speaker 3: Yes, and the dancerliness it was. Yeah, the way certain
Speaker 3: moments we were handled physically, it was very choreographed almost,
Speaker 3: And I said, it wouldn't have surprised me if at
Speaker 3: any moment someone just like broke out into a full
Speaker 3: on solo, like a dream ballet kind of moment.
Speaker 4: It could have happened.
Speaker 3: It would have and it would have fit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were there were a couple of brilliant staging
Speaker 1: moments that just yeah, it was like, oh, all right,
Speaker 1: I see what you did.
Speaker 3: So we definitely recommend you have until the twenty ninth
Speaker 3: of June of June to get your tickets, which are
Speaker 3: going very very quidly to see Giovanni's Room by Quintessen's
Speaker 3: Theater at the Sedgwick Theater in Germantown. Never you, Philadeufa.
Speaker 1: Yes, our huge thanks to Quintessence for inviting us, for
Speaker 1: Dido and Midge for sharing their time with us, And
Speaker 1: I really do hope you go out and see what
Speaker 1: we saw, because it's worth the trip.
Speaker 2: Indeed, thanks shall bye everyone.
Speaker 3: Full Circle is a Never Scurred Productions podcast hosted by
Speaker 3: Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal, produced and edited by
Speaker 3: Never Scurd Executive Produced by Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal.
Speaker 3: Our theme in music is by The jingle Berries. All names, pictures, music, audio,
Speaker 3: and video clips are registered trademarks and or copyrights of
Speaker 3: their respective copyright holders.