It's Monday, and it is still morning. I've been hard at work getting caught up on business mail, creating new systems diagrams and scheduling meetings to review those diagrams with others. Yet I still have a lot on my mind. On the morning drive - I had two specific and distinct thoughts that I wanted to explore. I'm not sure I will have time to do them both justice today - but just in case I do - I'll mark my first entry as the "early" edition.
Here we go... thought number one...
Well, it's not actually a thought, but a review of a play I went to see yesterday. The title of the play is Southern Baptist Sissies, written by Del Shores and directed by Bruce Coleman. The play is running through August 21, so if you are interested in seeing it - check out more information at http://www.uptownplayers.org/.
I had not had any exposure to reviews or information about the play except that I was told it was written by the same guy who wrote "Sordid Lives". So given the comedic nature of that work and the seemingly humorous title - I thought I was going to see a comedy. I love comedies. I like to laugh - and will generally choose that over something that makes me think too much or feel too deeply. So there's a glimpse at the coward in me.
So I went. I bought tickets for myself, my wife, my boyfriend and three other friends of ours. We also met some friends who had tickets for the same date and time. The theater is part of the Trinity River Arts Center at off of Stemmons Freeway and Motor street in Dallas. I'm not sure how many people can be seated in the theater, but I'm guessing it was not more than 250 people. The theater stage is small and intimate; a perfect setting for the play I was about to see.
I don't really want to give anything away in my review, because nothing I write here could provide the reader with a sense of having experienced something profound and important. I want you to go see this play for yourself! I don't want to spoil it for you.
The play deals with so many themes that if listed, would certainly overwhelm the best of orderly minds. But that is the way of life. We don't experience life as a list of strung-together events. We experience life in layers. Layers upon layers upon layers. That is how I felt sitting there watching this play. It felt so... so REAL!
There is plenty of very good dialog and some great one-liners that I know will be repeated over and over by some of us. There were some laughs (there's my comedy!) and there were some tears. Actually, for me, there were lots of tears. Some for the personal pain of living in a judging world, but more for the pain experienced by those who are dear to me, and who actually "lived" the story unfolded on that stage. My boyfriend sat there sobbing through many parts, sometimes uncontrollably, because some of the pain was just too close to home and so deeply pressed into his soul. Way too much of the play and the dialogue could have been written by him - from personal experience. He was, and in many ways still is, Mark, the main character in the play (played by Carter Hudson). He was raised deeply rooted in one of the strictest religions I know of. He became involved in a same-sex physical relationship early in his teen years with someone who could not handle the consequential guilt and shame. He fell in love with the boy - only to be used and discarded - dismissed as a "phase", a "mistake" and an "abomination". I know life is unfair at times. It is also painful at times. But I think the deepest cuts and resulting scars come from the pain associated with the "L" word - yes... Love.
This play explores all of these themes and more! Love is looked at from many angles; self love, God's love, mothers' love, physical love, false love, love in friendship, love lost, love found and once again - this listing might be endless - and therefore meaningless to pursue an end...
I count myself as lucky. I have love in my life. True love. Those who attended the play with me could see it for themselves as I held the hand of my wife of 22 years on my left side, and held the hand of my boyfriend of 9 months on my right side. We all three felt the piercing message of the play. We felt the twisting despair caused by religious daggers of judgment and we heard the message of hope in words that told us to believe in ourselves and to believe in love - no matter what! And each of us understand the need to reach out to one another and bolster the quivering hearts and spirits until we can all soar again - in peace... in freedom... in love.
Don't take my word for anything here... go see the play for yourself. It can be transforming, and freeing.
If you want to find ways to better understand how bigotry, judgmentalism and fundamentalism are formed and ingrained into the very fabric of mankind - look to the portrayal of the preacher and the mothers, caught up in an unholy, ungrounded, rickety and contradictory theology that is more defeating than liberating.
If you want to find ways to love more deeply - look to the "sissies" where you will find they aren't sissies at all - but real men, as God created man to be. In all their diversity, and variety. Their glory is His glory. Their victory is a victory for us all.
In the words of Mark - "sometimes I close my eyes and imagine a perfect world..." Let's all try to imagine Mark's world - and then open our eyes and make it real!
Peace to you all!
Woof ya later!
- bbw
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