June 19, 2025 • 78 mins
In this episode, Charles & Martha sat down with cast members Dito Van Reigersberg and Midge Nease to discuss Quintessence Theater Group's adaptation of James Baldwin's 'Giovanni's Room.'
They also talk about the importance of representation in theater, emphasizing the weight of Baldwin's legacy and the ongoing struggle for self-acceptance and love.
They also touch on identity, expression, and the importance of authentic storytelling, particularly within the queer community, and the need for queer voices in creative works.
Quintessence Theatre Group's production of James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room" runs until July 6th
GET TICKETS
LEARN MORE about Quintessence Theatre Group
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Visit our Linktree
-- Please Subscribe and Give Us A Review (5 stars or more, preferably!)
SUPPORT US ON PATREON
Check out Medway Pride Radio
They also talk about the importance of representation in theater, emphasizing the weight of Baldwin's legacy and the ongoing struggle for self-acceptance and love.
They also touch on identity, expression, and the importance of authentic storytelling, particularly within the queer community, and the need for queer voices in creative works.
Quintessence Theatre Group's production of James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room" runs until July 6th
GET TICKETS
LEARN MORE about Quintessence Theatre Group
--
Visit our Linktree
-- Please Subscribe and Give Us A Review (5 stars or more, preferably!)
SUPPORT US ON PATREON
Check out Medway Pride Radio
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
An important piece of theater premiered in Philadelphia. James Baldwin's
work is finally coming to life on the stage. We
got to talk with two of the actors and then
we went and saw the performance. So here now is
(00:21):
our interview, followed by our talk about the show.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Enjoy.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Coming to you from the Dunion Table at East Arbury Lane.
Welcome to a very special Pride edition of Full Circle
the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I am your host, Charles Tyson Jr.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And I'm your Martha Mandrigal, and we have something really
special going on during Pride Month, incited, I know, to
Quintessant's theater world premiere adaptation of James Baldwin's groundbreaking novel
Giovanni's Room has been extended through June twenty ninth. It's
(01:19):
playing on stage at the Quintessant Theater at the Sedgewick.
And today we're going to talk to Midgneieth and Jada
von Reugersberg from the cast. Welcome to the Full Circle Table.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Thank you for loving us. Look good.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
That's a loaded question in it, well, right in this world,
in this it's a loaded question. But you're immersed in
something that I think is really important. James Baldwin, one
of my favorite queer writers ever. So much wit and
wisdom and grit, and I what time to revisit it
(02:01):
and be reminded of the stories he left behind. Yes,
how's it been?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
It's been great. I mean, I think Midge and I
both actually get to eat. Correct me if I'm wrong.
My characters are droppers of wisdom in different ways. I
love that. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Yes, a lot of the structure of the play in
the way that it because the novel is all David's memory,
and so the structure of the adaptation really has a
lot of these voices and personalities that he encountered along
his journey re emerge in non non reality, but as
(02:51):
witnesses to what he's doing, as reminders to him and
symbols of those lessons that they give him along the way.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, I love that. So, for those
of those in our audience who are not familiar, what
is the story of Giovanni's Room and who do each
of you portray in the story?
Speaker 4 (03:19):
The story goes a little something like this. You know.
The spoiler alert is that nobody ends up very well.
It's kind of tragic in every dimension. But so there's
a young American named David, and he's kind of a
central character, but I would almost say he's in he's
(03:42):
the anti hero because he well you'll see, but he
is in Europe. He's on a journey to find himself.
He's been in Paris about two years, and he considers
himself straight I think, and he's he's just asked his
(04:07):
girlfriend of two of I think about two years or
some amount of time that he's been in Paris. He
met this woman named Hella, and he asked her to
marry him before the action of the play starts. And
one of the mysteries that I don't really know the
answer to is she doesn't say yes. She says, I
have to think about it. I'm going to go to
(04:29):
Spain and think about it. While she's in Spain, David
has a little adventure at a bar called Guillomes and
Guillom's Bar, where he's sort of I kind of am
the one. My character's name is Jacques. My character kind
of like ushers him in. Jack is an older gay
(04:51):
man and he he takes him to this bar that's
pretty much that's a gay bar, and at the bar
is the flag Princess pleaded by Midge and the bartender's
name Giovanni, and Giovanni is an Italian man, and they
set they set eyes on each other, and everything stepped
(05:17):
off from there because he suddenly is deeply and profoundly falling,
founding himself falling Anni, And while still away, they spend
I think any number of weeks in bed together there
in love, and David is there, doesn't have a job,
(05:40):
so he's just there in this tiny apartment that they
end up sharing, and Giovanni only leaves, I think to
go to work, and they are having this beautiful affair.
But then through a series of letters, you learn that
he was going to come back, and the pressure is
(06:01):
on for Duvid to marry her because his father pressuring
him to come back and start his real life in
this processed of what are you doing over the dream?
What are you doing finding it? And so that's where
the tragedy starts to happen because he sort of out
(06:26):
of this financial and obviously social pressure in the nineteen fifties,
he's like, maybe I can figure out a way Mary
Hella and to be with her, and he totally abandons Giovanni.
He does some bad things to Giovanni leaves him and
is with Hella without any wonder to Giovanni for a month,
(06:49):
and then they happened to me will Street, and everything
goes bad from there and.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
No one ends up happy high queer drawing.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well right, and of the time, I mean, you know,
the book as I recall was written in fifty five
and published in fifty six, so you know, very typical.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Of the time.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
You know, that time when anyone who could be closeted.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Was exactly exactly and it took a lot of break.
I mean, there were there have been examples through even
way before the fifties where people were kind of lived
out loud. But I would say the majority of people,
you know, there's a real fear of losing a job
or not. You know, okay, because that used to happen.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Regularly. And again, well some would have us go back there.
I have no intention, yeah, but you know, but it
was commonplace. So I'm okay with this being tragedy because
well a lot of it was. And you know, like
Dad saying time to grow up and leave all that behind,
(08:09):
it brings it rings just true. I'm also of a
certain age, and it's and you know this this stuff
rings true. I know when you said older gay man,
I'm like Jesus Christ, that's where we are. It's just
where we are, Like, yeah, okay.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
You know what makes it like fel okay to be
a tragedy to me is that it's not a tragedy
because they're queer. It's not a tragedy because he is gay.
It is a tragedy because he refuses to acknowledge it.
And that refusal to admit to yourself who you are
(08:50):
and cutting yourself off from happiness is what ends up
destroying your own life and all of these lives around you.
And at the end of the day, he will probably
be okay because he's he has the most going for
(09:11):
him going back to America or whatever he wants to do,
and everybody in his path is the one that suffers
the most.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Yeah, there's there's there's a lot of letters throughout the show,
and the very last image of the show, which we
had to work on as a special for a movie
a long time, is that he he gets a final
letter from me from Jacques that he rips up and
he throws it away. But there's end and the and
(09:44):
the piece of letter blowback at him, which is a
sort of beautiful idea that you you can try to
destroy the evident, you can try to destroy what's happened,
and you can try to say I didn't I didn't
mess up anyone's life, I didn't lie to anyone. But
(10:05):
truth is going to blow back to you.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Uh always does.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Yeah, Yeah. But I think part of what's so heartbreaking
and strange about what happens to David is that he
he ends up lying a lot, and you start seeing
through him more and more and more and and just
you start to see that those lies are destructive, and
(10:31):
him lying to other people, and him lying to all
of that treating up.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
And sadly, that's a story that we've seen play out
in real life way too many times. People hold on
to the lie and eat you up inside and it
starts to extend out from inside of yourself and affects
everything around you and your whole life. Authenticity is the
only healthy choice, but unfortunately it's not the available choice
(11:01):
for some.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
People, and for some people's it was not encouraged in
our families how they were raised. It's a journey to
find how to speak authentically.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Which I always think about when people say, you know,
hearkening back to the good old days talking about this
time period we think about like not even just queer people,
but like how everyone must have been walking around with
so much repression all the time, just like even like
your your cis had white folks, like because there's so
(11:40):
many constraints about what is a man, what is a woman,
and no one is those things like naturally, really I
don't believe. So it's like that's what we want. We
want to go back to this place of repression and
inauthenticity and lying to ourselves.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Great, the people who want us to go back are
the ones that always worked out for mostly well, I
mean they're having the good old day.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's easy to be nostalgic because
because it's it's sort of imaginary. It's sort of like
when I think back with time that is gone, I
think it was a great time, but there's no truth
that it was a great time. And as saying good
time in your particular right world.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, I mean I was really cute in the eighties,
but we were scared to death to have sex. We
didn't know what's fun, you know, I mean, like we
had great music, but.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
Yeah, you can't desire a thing that you have. You
can only desire the thing that you either have yet
to achieve or the thing that you've lost.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
There, Yeah, there is fair.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I just wanted to say I love the story of
how this kind of came to be, you know, starting
in two thousand and eight, so it's a seventeen year
journey bringing this to the stage. And I love the
fact that it looks like eventually Felicia Rashad was involved.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
How cool is that? Right?
Speaker 5 (13:17):
She's creative Consultant, I think is her official title on
the project. Her and Paul Okball, one of the co
adaptors and the director have a close relationship, and we
were lucky enough to get to even have a little
(13:37):
chat with her in like the last couple previews in rehearsals.
Just check in with her and help us through some
difficult moments because some.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Of the language is.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
Not modern in its point of view, and I think
especially Hella has this speech about like let me be
a woman, let me be your little servant and be
your let me do the things that women are supposed
(14:12):
to do, quote unquote, And I'll give up cigarettes, I'll
wear my hair long, I'll throw away my books. I
will do anything to make this work. Let me be
a woman, and not to tell the actors story for her,
but she was having trouble making that makes sense today.
(14:37):
And Felicious said to let it be poetry that we've
all been in that situation where we want something so
badly that we would do anything, We would compromise our
(14:57):
own desires and our own morals and our own humanity
in order to grasp at this thing that is being
pulled away from us. And we mentioned how like back
in the good old days quote how much of the
(15:21):
struggle of repression was about masculinity and about femininity. And
it's not just a struggle of whether to be you
can be gay or not, but it's also a struggle
of what it means to be a man, what it
means to be a woman. David struggles with his manhood
(15:42):
and in a relationship with another man, he thinks that
he's being treated like a woman, and he struggles with
that because it's so unfamiliar, and like, God forbid, I
get treated like a woman.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Uh huh, because we know how that goes.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
The worst thing you can call someone, Okay, Mitch, tell
me a little bit about your character.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Yeah, flaming Princess is a which is a wonderful name,
and that, like in the novel, is not named. They
are a denizen of the bar that walks away like
a princess flaming. And that's kind of where that I've
(16:33):
done where the title comes from, I know. But in
the novel it's a much older character and it is
another kind of wise bend there, I know what you're
going through, voice using he and him and sometimes it
(16:57):
in the novel, and but but described as having eyes
gleaming with mascara and a mouth raging with lipstick, and
the shirt coquettishly open to reveal a hairless chest like
it's and there's descriptions about this character's body being not
(17:24):
quite round in the places that you'd think it would
be round in the way that they're presenting themselves. And
big language didn't exist, but it is a trans person.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
It is right, Well, it's en, it's a queen, but
that's the language that exists.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
And this character in the bar after she sees and
I'm gonna use she after she sees. Sorry, James, not
to defy you're your writing, James Baldwin, but I'm gonna
use she instead of he. She gives him a warning
(18:07):
that like, I see what you what this little flourishing
relationship that is starting.
Speaker 6 (18:15):
And.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
You're gonna go to hell for the way that you're
gonna treat this man. And it's not said so explicitly
as you're gonna cause a lot of people harm, but
it's a boy like that is dangerous for a boy like.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
You, and.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
You're gonna burn in a very hot fire. And he
tells her to go fuck herself, and she says, no, no,
I will be just fine because you can't touch me.
And he, even if he tries to, he gets ready
(18:57):
to go at her, and nobody else in that bar
is going to let you touch her.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Right, I love that? And he runs into on.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
The street later and she's the one that in public
calls him a fag after he says, you're no, you're
no girl, You're a freak, and she says, and you
are a fag.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Not so different.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I feel like I've had this conversation, right.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
So it's interesting because in the novel she would be
an older, wise kind of seer character, and in our adaptation,
by this is my understanding that the wise, older character
(19:54):
spot was kind of is already exists in the adaptation,
and and you can have multiple of those over hours
and hours and hours of a novel, but in a
two hour play, that role is there. And what is
really impactful is David looking and these two characters looking
(20:18):
at each other as possible reflections of what their lives
could have been, as they're in a very similar spot
in life, and Flaming Princess sees David as I.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Could have been you.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
I could have been a beautiful, blonde, handsome man, and
I could have been privileged, and there could have been
successes in my life. My life could have been easy,
just like yours is. But I admitted to myself who
(20:55):
I am even though my life is harder, my life
is worth living now mm hmm. And that part, I
was brave enough to do it. And you are a coward.
And because you are a coward, you are going to
hurt yourself and you were going to hurt so many
people around you.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
And that's so sad, it is, but that's real. Yeah, yeah,
she sees them as I told you so.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
I tried to tell you, but nothing more I can do.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
I love that was that tell me? Was it? Easy, hard, fun.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
It is all of those things, Okay. Coming into the process,
of course, it was very overwhelming to feel this like
weight on my shoulders of not only the words of
Baldwin and the pressure doing the novel justice, but all
(22:00):
so the pressure to do right by my community, in
our community and represent trans people with dignity and not
as a caricature and not as some not a man
in address and not a joke, but as a person
(22:20):
with dignity and humanity and a person that deserves a
spot in the world, and a proof that we've always
been here. We didn't have the language for it, but
we've always been.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Here, of course.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
And then going into rehearsals, it becomes very fun to
then be oh so powerful and feel the flame and
the fire in that and like put on the accent
and suddenly you feel a lot sexier, I feel a
lot more woutful.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Okay, it's it's a ride. Okay.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Was the part of the character who is still identified
as male? How did you deal with that.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
For you?
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Yeah, she does get clocked on the street by another
character that it's like, what is that not spar off
to Phantom of the Opera, And it's it's about the
separation of the character in the acter.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
That's about being h that is taking care of yourself
in the rehearsal process.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
And that's something we had to make a distinction about
very early on in our agreements as a community, that like,
that is not me, that is how you're treating that person,
but the person the actor that says that on stage.
I am that's my sister and we're friends and we're
(24:06):
in the same dressing room together and we giggle and
kiki and all of that. So I can protect my
humanity person to person knowing that the character gets treated
that way.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
No, I love that, And yeah, it's storytelling from a
different era. And you know that you can do that
and do it well, good for you.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I don't know if I could. At this point. I
feel like I have a hard time, right.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
I definitely feel like, you know, if you come to
the material from that place of honor and respect and authenticity,
it's going to ring true kind of no matter what happens.
So I understand, you know, one to make sure that
(25:03):
certain things are are handled correctly, but when you come
from a place that place of honesty, I think I
feel like that will always come through you know what
I mean?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
And did know?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
You know, I would be remiss if I didn't bring
the other Martha up because you've been known for from
years as Martha Graham.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Cracker from one mark, Yeah, did she make an.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Appearance from one Martha to another?
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Did?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Did did that inform this in any way? You've done
it for so long, and you've just got this amazing
character that has got a part of She's part of
you at this point.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
I don't know. I mean, I played this character name
who as as I said, like, is it like an elder,
older gay statesman? And uh in that way he doesn't.
I don't know. He dropped wisdom in a way that
I hope Martha also does. But he's yeah, no, he
(26:08):
but he's a businessman. He's wearing a suit. He okay,
he's a Belgian guy who works.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I was just trying to fit that in there. I mean,
I was just trying to make sure we got Martha
into the conversation.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
So one thing that I love about him that maybe
Yeah did that because he dropped his these wisdom bombs.
But he's yeah, witty, like he said, he jokes in
a very sophisticated way with David, and he's like he
very clearly sees David the main character, and he kind
(26:48):
of knows how to both like poke at him and
joke with him, and and yeah, I think he wants
to flirt with David and be friends with him. But
he also like, I see how all this lying that
(27:09):
I see you doing your downfall. Ah. So it's it's
a fun character because he gets to do a lot
of different things, and in his wittedness, I would say
he's related to Martha, but yeah, in other ways he's
(27:29):
he's just some dude. Okay, that's fair. And it's funny
because and I play I play both the dad in
Letters Letters to Date one who kind of reinforces like
what we're expecting is for you to marry a woman
so that I can release the me that you keep
(27:51):
asking for too, because until you married, I don't know
what you're doing over there. I'm not gonna let you
waste your money just sing around Europe. So there's this
like father figure that is the data. And then there's
this father figure it was just an older game, and
(28:13):
who was trying to help lead David through the the
CD Gay Underworld of Paris, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And I gotta say, and I love to tell this
story because you know, some of these folks are still around,
like Sandy Beach. Sandy Beach was a bartender in Atlantic
City when I was coming of age. You know, once
I had a driver's lace, my cousin and I would
go to New York Avenue and that's where we found community.
That's that's that was it. And you know people like
(28:44):
like sis Uh, Sonny and and Sandy and they looked
out for us, you know, they they kind of warned
us away from certain people or they told them, don't
leave those kids alone. You know, they were they were
that almost the oracles that kept us alive, and you know,
said welcome. Nobody got carted back then. You know, if
(29:04):
you could get your ass there, come on, come on in.
And it was a real coming of age, you know,
and those people really helped shape my understanding of community
because that's just what they did, you know, was take
care of us and say you know, they knew we
were little idiots, and you know.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
They.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Did their best to make sure we stayed alive.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
That night.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Yeah, yeah, Well I'm performing in Atlantic City of July fifth,
are you what a place called the Anchor. Oh okay, yeah,
but I think that's also on New York. I don't
know that, I.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Is it really I I went there in the daytime
not that long ago, and I thought, Jesus Christ, it's
a parking lot.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Now.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
It was a gighborhood. I mean it was New York.
Avenue was queer as fuck, and you know, we had
well we had Studio six, which was apparently Studio five
before that, and you know, there were two hotels. One
was the Chester Camp with the Life of Me, remember
the other one and the Rendezvous and the Brass Rail.
(30:18):
You know, it was there was so much community because.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
I missed the clever bar names they.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Were and the men who were looking for other the
company of other men didn't have the internet.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Right, so all of those bars were backed on the
weekend yet other people. Yeah, right, that was it.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
That was how we found the community. That was how
we found one another. And you know, and I remember
being mesmerized by the young trans girls who would, you know,
kind of come out to the drag shows and hang out.
And I was just drawn to them because like, how
are you having all this courage?
Speaker 4 (30:57):
You know, in nineteen eighty three or whatever the fuck
I was.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, yeah, that is the thing that I miss about
those spaces, Like you know, I'm coming up in we're
talking the mid nineties, but you know, you still had
that space for community and safety that existed, and I
(31:26):
can't but imagine what it would have been like in
the fifties when it was literally a place of refuge.
And that whole aspect of the queer community is all
but gone because you know, as I'm fond of saying,
you can just pick up your phone and ordered dick
like pizza, So why do you need to leave.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
The house, you know, And that's what happens now. I
mean that happens.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And you know, a big focus of everything I'd do
is community building, you know, again, because I think we need.
It's one of the things I feel so strongly that
we need is to know each other, yeah, more than again,
and to write and to find that common ground.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I've been doing Transway forever with Elizabeth Coffee Williams, and
you know, she was a John Waters actress. She runs
Transway with me, and you know she talks about going
down to Baltimore advocating for herself at Johns Hopkins and
(32:35):
you know the way, and when I got to meet
John Waters, we talked about exactly that.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
We didn't have all these words. You know, we liked
each other.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
We saw another queer and come on over and he said,
you know, and we figured out what to do. And
I'm like, I know there are very many categories now,
but you know, so we can wax nostalgic, but then
we can also say the words help us to know
one another better and with more clarity. So it was
this great discussion to have about just how community came together.
(33:09):
And you know, that was the early seventies. Again, my
era started in the early eighties, but it was so similar. Yeah,
you know, we just because we didn't talk about it.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
In high school.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Nobody was out, at least in my little high school
in South Jersey. Nobody, not on purpose, not as anything. Right,
If you were out, it it was because somebody told.
But that's just that was the time. And so when
we found each other, we found each other and you know,
so many friendships that we still have from that time,
(33:43):
the ones that are still with us.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
And that's a question that I have, you know, because
this work is a period piece, it is a window
into a certain time, I'm place and mindset and so
like how familiar and how foreign were parts of How
(34:16):
how was it getting into this mindset of the characters
to be in this place that is so restrictive yet
freeing and colorful environment yet you know, terrifying.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
I don't know. I think it was a bigger learning.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Opportunity for the members of the cast that aren't queer.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, oh wait, oh I'm sure, Oh yes.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
I mean it sounds silly, but like the one of
the first kind of exercises we did early on was
like kind of bruising each other in a way of
just not being afraid to hold eye contact with each
other and and and say a lot with very little
(35:09):
and and make those connections navigating through the space together.
And how the only way to when you can't just
safely say it out loud, the only way to make
a connection and show interest is in your body and
(35:32):
your mannerisms and in eye contact. And they've like said
cruising and the one one actor was just what right,
And we're like, oh.
Speaker 6 (35:48):
Up, a little bit, all right, do a little bit
of queer one of one ill And yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You know you don't you don't think of what a
far and concept that probably is too straight people, right,
what do you.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Mean not to mention? I imagine like with actors it's probably
not as big of a deal, but like no shade,
when you're dealing with people of a certain age, maintaining
eye contact is like a whole thing. Because I've often said,
you want to like take down a thirty year old,
(36:24):
look them in the eye and don't look away. You
know what I'm saying. So I imagine like that in
itself was an exercise and courage totally.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, you didn't get to answer. Well.
I was thinking about when I was coming up in
the in the mid early to mid nineties, we had
a name for it, which is which it was kind
of one two look. It was always like passing each
other look and usually like the count was one to
(36:59):
look or you're like, oh no they didn't look. I was.
But but yeah, that when I would be walking on
you know, walking out on the streets for no reason
and past someone and you both look back. But that
was grinder. That was like, oh that was grinder. That
(37:22):
was it was like, yep.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Then you have to decide how badly you need to
go in this direction.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah, I don't ever mean to suggest we had more decorum.
I just mean it things happened differently.
Speaker 5 (37:37):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
You couldn't like all your best photographs and post them
up and be like here order the pizza happening in
real time. See you you are more all right? But anyway,
I was going to just mention our fantastic costume designer.
(37:58):
Her name is Colleen and he one of the things
that she did, she and I remember her before we
met her. She got all these photographs of her kind
of reference points for each one of our characters, and
I felt like that was a really helpful kind of
gallery for each one of us to be like, oh yeah,
(38:18):
and a lot of them she took from a talented
mister Ripley aw that movie and talented mister Ripley with
Matt Damon. Anyway, there's that because that's sort of the
same time period and also positiveness. So so yeah, there
she she had photographs or yeah, reference points for each
(38:43):
one of our characters in that was really helpful in
terms of getting us getting getting a window into that
world that era. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah, I here all the time, like you you look
yourself in the costume and then all of a sudden,
that last little piece of the puzzle for the character
locks into place, like oh, there they are.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Yeah, well and that's you know so right.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
So many of those elements that non theater people don't
even think about that are part of the storytelling. Yeah,
you know, the costumes, the lighting, you know, sometimes so
minimal backup, but we're always storytelling, you know.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
That's what I love it. I always love it. Yeah,
and there's a magical not to give it away, but
there's I think in the set time there's an incredible
as a bed in Giovannion and the bar in it,
both bars they visit. So it's really because it wasn't
(39:53):
a very big it's kind of so it's elegant kind
of that. Yeah, and I think really makes the most
of this one piece that has wheels. It's actually kind
of amazingly trick piece, but it can be tipped up
to be the bar and down to people bed's. I
(40:16):
love that.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
That is one thing that I'm looking forward to seeing
how the space is used. Because we were there once
before we saw a production of a fello.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Okay that's what I thought, and that was a.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Very minimal which you can get all the gay othello,
all male, all male, excuse me?
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Well and pretty it was.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
It was different than what I was expecting, because when
I read an all male a fellow set against the
military in.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
The nineteen nineties, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
I think it was earlier than that. It was I
conjured up a different backdrop than what they meant. Was
basically like a traditional performance of Shakespeare in which the
men also played the women characters, which was also fabulous,
(41:16):
just a little different than what I was expected.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
So different.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
How important to each of you is the retelling of
queer history today?
Speaker 4 (41:28):
So important? I mean I think of, you know, having
come up in the nineties. I think of the generation
that lived through the beginning of the age crisis is
really like these saints that I the word is not,
(41:51):
I sort of and in awe of that strength and
that ability to to withstand the political climate, the the
the crisis of mortality, to tap all around you. The
(42:12):
number of funerals that they would attend any given month week. Yeah,
it's just uh, I mean, that's just one example. But
that first generation that with the AIDS crisis, I think
of as my heroes and my maybe my angels and
(42:36):
I have other you know, other gay um hum icons
and other eras Federico Garcia Lorca, a poet in Spain
and and he was shot at the beginning of the
of the fascist regime. There both are being outspoken liberals
(42:57):
and for being gay. So yeah, they're there. It's so
important to know this all happened and how we got
to the perhaps tenuous but like much more uh, the
firmer that we're on now. I think it didn't happen magic, No,
(43:20):
it didn't. And you know, I always say.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
When when someone says these kids today, I'm like, we
raised brats in one fucking generation. Who else can say that?
Speaker 4 (43:36):
Good? And good?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
I want you to have a sense of entitlement. I
want you to have a sense of place, you know.
I want you to know that you belong. You know, Midge,
you said that you know that idea, and it just
it hit with me because you talked about not a
man in address and being taken seriously and not being
(43:58):
a joke was probably the most important thing to me.
That was what I was most afraid of, was being
a joke, was losing all sense of place in this
world or voice in this world. Because I saw so
much erasure, and you know, we have to deal with that.
(44:21):
We've got to peel back those fucking layers to come to,
you know, our sense of selves. And part of it
is history, part of it is knowing it. Part of
it is understanding, you know, what came before.
Speaker 5 (44:37):
And in retelling these stories, it's so important to show
the ugly parts.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
M Oh yeah, Like.
Speaker 5 (44:46):
I admit to getting scared of like what if they
see an imperfect version of our community, They're going to
think that we're and it's like, well, but we're humans
who are all flawed, and we can tell a story
(45:07):
about people that make mistakes and do shitty things to
each other without having to like pause it and comment
about like just a reminder that this is not an
okay thing to do.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
We can have enough.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Media literacy to understand, like that is a person behaving badly,
and I'm supposed to condemn.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
It the views of this homosexual.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Somebody asked me one day. It was a stupid It
was one of those stupid, pointless conversation with someone and
they said to me, what about folsome you know, meaning
the street fair? And I was like, I looked at them,
like you're I said what about serial killers.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
You first, what the fuck.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Since we're just like saying randomness are saying but it's
like whatever someone perceives as the worst of.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
All consenting people that are agreeing to be there where
there are all adults that are consented to be in
this environment.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Oh no exactly, but it.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Was in that person's mind that was like debauchery and
the worst thing they could think about. You know, I
guess at the moment and I'm like, what what are
you doing? But that is what people do, is you know,
we're all supposed to answer for our biggest mess, but
(46:41):
it doesn't work in the reverse, and I want to
I still want to know why.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
Well, and then you figure like they love to boil
down the queer community to anatomy and sex acts, to
which like, now my response is, oh, do you cease
to become straight the moment after you come? Is that
how this works? You know? Like, but because you you
(47:12):
they have But if your entire way of being is
encapsulated by by a sex act, then you know, then
you start thinking about all the different kinds of sex
(47:34):
acts and and what's the worst kind? And and this
this whole like thing of like what makes a queer
person is built up of a ship that's not any
of your business. Uh be things that probably don't actually
exist except because of the Internet, probably do now.
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
But it's it's just crazy. We have this puritanical view
of who we should, what makes a good person, and
what makes a bad person. And I really wish we
could get to this place where, for instance, public figures
can't be toppled because they had sex with someone, you
know what I mean. Like, it's really it's really crazy,
(48:18):
the way our fear of sex, our fear of enjoyment.
Speaker 5 (48:22):
Yeah, well back to the whole fulsome comment, it's like,
if you define a community by the type of sex
they're having, then that community is also going to start
defining itself in more nuanced ways by the type of
sex they're having. And if you make sexuality the entire
(48:49):
identity of a group of people, then they're going to
find ways to make you look at it as a
much more interesting, colorful thing what you think it.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Is, which there can also be a beautiful thing, like
you know, that's how we get folks walking around in
broad daylight with leather dog masks and and and and
butt plugs with tails coming out of them as they
walk down the street. Right, we are nothing if not created.
(49:23):
You can try it, you might like it, that part,
and that's what scares the hell out of them.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
I wish I could remember who first said that straight
people have way more gay sex than gay people because
there's more of them.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
And they went, yeah, there's there's more straight butts to
do butt stuff with.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
Anyway, that's what is entirely.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
I don't think so, I know, right, they say, we
we think everyone's again, I'm like, well, there's spaghetti straight.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
You know, there's what's I guess this is true. They
are uh straight until you heat it up spaghetti. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I feel slow.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Spaghetti straight. I love that. I love that this is happening.
I love that it's happening. I want to see more
of you know, this kind.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
Of work.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Treated with respect, right, treated with you know, queer people
telling queer stories so important that there can't be straight
cast members obviously.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Well, I think that's great, because you know, the best
way to come to a place of agreement and empathy
is to step inside the shoes of another person and
get a different viewpoint. And if more and more people
would just be willing to do that. Can you imagine
the world that we will be living in? Yeah, not
(51:06):
this one.
Speaker 6 (51:06):
And if we're going to use some argument that only
gay people can play gay people, all of that, I'll
let you have that for a moment and counter it
with both David and Giovanni are characters that at one
time claimed to be straight. Of course, Giovanni had a girl,
he had a kid, Spoilers abound.
Speaker 5 (51:32):
David claims to be straight, has a fiance. Like, actually,
it's a more authentic way to tell the story to
have these in a way, to have these characters played
by straight man that just so happened to experience some
(51:55):
of the magic they might have missed and in distance,
I agree.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
With you, And that's a thing like obviously it wouldn't
work with this particular time period. But just like I
watch a movie that takes place in the eighties and
I'll sit there and go, you know, if they had
a cell phone, this movie would be three minutes long.
Just like I look at certain situations and I go,
(52:23):
if we would just admit that bisexuality exists, this whole
story would be irrelevant.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Well it would, And I think queer people have to
be very involved in queer storytelling.
Speaker 4 (52:39):
How's that?
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Yes, absolutely, it's essential, and I can I can point
to it from three miles away when they're not.
Speaker 4 (52:50):
Nobody would say.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
Black gay man is our director, and another gay man
is another co adapter, like and and there are lots
of queer people on the creative team that are overseeing this.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Telling, and.
Speaker 5 (53:12):
We'll allow an ally in there. Ever, so every once
in a while if we have to.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
If we have to, that's fair. It would be very
weird for this. I was imagine this play being directed
by a straight man, and I'm like, that would be
so good, right, right. Part of why I think the
(53:40):
David and Giovanni romance is so feel so legitimate is
because they were sort of guided through that by by
the directors, right.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
I mean, that's that's just where I get hung up.
Speaker 4 (53:59):
What the one. I'm still annoyed the whale.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
I was waiting for it, the whale.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
First of all, we could not find a gay man
of size, really, really, I mean come on. And it
was the acceptance speech that got me, because what Brendan
Fraser tried to say was this is universal storytelling. No
(54:27):
the fuck it is not. Not one of you have
ever lost your job because of who you are. Not
one of you have ever lost your family because of
who you are, and until and unless, No, this is
queer storytelling, my dear, And the fact that you don't
know that is why you shouldn't have the role.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
I mean, that's that's my thing. Like, I'm not saying
that straight actors should never get to play queer roles. However,
queer folks should always get right of first refusal, bam, period.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
That And again, you know, it takes kind of everybody.
I don't I don't like seeing, you know, trans characters
portrayed by sis people without trans people right there, at least,
I don't like it. And again, there's enough of us
that it shouldn't be impossible to let us tell our story.
(55:23):
You find our story so fascinating, but you don't want
us telling them the fuck?
Speaker 4 (55:28):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (55:30):
So we have to make sure they're told otherwise it
doesn't happen, right, And that's what I think is happening here.
Speaker 4 (55:39):
Yeah, thank goodness, it comes back authenticity.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Yeah exactly, Like, not only does authenticity come across loud
and clear, so does the lack of it even more so,
I know it's just yeah, like I was in a
short a couple of years ago, and my character was
(56:05):
queer as well, and there was like one little line
of dialogue and I had to like, I told us,
and I'm changing this line because I wouldn't say that.
They wouldn't say that, like this is when does this
take place? Yeah, no, one's gonna say that right now.
You know, you need you need that that reality. Otherwise
(56:29):
that's where caricature comes in.
Speaker 4 (56:32):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
You know. Like we went to a production of Kinky Boots, Oh.
Speaker 4 (56:42):
That and it was unfortunate and.
Speaker 3 (56:47):
Gay minstrel was the term we walked away with. Yeah,
you know, like the choreography, Like even the choreography it's
like have you medicaleer person like ever in your life?
Like they literally had be walking across the stage going
it was a it was a local I'm not exaggerating, yeah,
(57:08):
straight up, Like and I'm sitting there twitching and then
I look over at her and you were like all
but rocking back and forth. I don't know how the
second act was your your double yo, yo, right right
(57:29):
there it is.
Speaker 4 (57:31):
Yeah, yeah, it just happened.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
I was thinking about we had gone to a talkback
and it was meant to be a talkback, you know,
of a one woman show that was still very much
in the writing. And you know, I said to the director,
a woman would never have said that you wrote, or
actually the writer, I said, you need a woman to
check that dialogue, because there's not a woman who would
(58:00):
focus where you focused in that entire monologue.
Speaker 4 (58:05):
And the actress went and I hope, but it is
now better.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
But it was just like that, you know, the part
of the story you thought was important was from a
male perspective. Yeah, that, and it so it rang in
authentical way.
Speaker 5 (58:28):
Yeah, I mean, I've this is true for writing trans
characters as well. That I've definitely read roles that are
trans women that were pretty obviously not written by a
trans woman. They were written by a trans masculine person,
(58:50):
because it just it is a different experience. Yes, we
are in community and we share a lot of the
same struggle, but there's also stuff that is could it's
just not the same. And the things that trans women
(59:10):
experience are very different than the things that trans men experience.
And you can tell that you are writing about an
experience that you do not understand, even if you want to.
And we appreciate that you're trying and giving us the representation.
(59:33):
But also when I tell you, I don't think that's
what a trans person, when a trans woman would be
so worried about, I think there's some other stuff that
would be more important. I need you to listen to
me and be willing to understand that.
Speaker 3 (59:55):
That's the sticking point right there. We need to listen
to each other because we get caught up in our
own egos and like, well, I know what I'm doing, and.
Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
But do you?
Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
And it looks like you ain't got no friends, you
know what I mean, like no one to tell you
who you know to steer you, and you need to
We need to be able to listen to each other
if we're going to be able to tell or experience
each other's stories.
Speaker 4 (01:00:28):
It's I find it's always so fascinating and so complicated
because here we are, we're doing a play written or
we're telling the story that was that is ostensibly only
with white characters written by black man. So it's also
like you could say, like, how well is he going
(01:00:50):
to tell this story? I do think there's you know,
it's free complicated and you of course, and I don't
want to live in a world where people can only
write about their own experience. But again, I think it's
about the amount of research, the amount of care, the
(01:01:12):
amount of listening. As you said, it goes into into
the storytelling.
Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Right, And you can always like there's a difference between
being well meaning and being respectful. You can always tell
when someone is coming from a well meaning place because
it's like, Okay, that was cute, But when it comes
from a respectful place, you want to be like, oh damn,
you do have queer friends, you do have black friends,
because that was real. And you know, I'm not going
to you know, and I'm not going to pretend that
(01:01:41):
when I first saw that Giovanni's Room was coming that,
you know, when I clipped on the promo trailer and
I saw the cast, I was like, huh. So I
immediately did little research as to who was behind the scenes,
and I was like, oh, okay, right, I'm good again.
Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
I trust I mean, you know, I trust quintessence anyway,
but you know, yeah, I gotta check.
Speaker 4 (01:02:10):
Yeah, I think this came up.
Speaker 5 (01:02:13):
We had a talkback last night at time of recording,
and also in the audience was a book club I
don't remember the name.
Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
Of it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
But it was a book club of mostly black men,
and one man asked, like, what was it like to
be speaking as a but as white actors speaking the
words of a black man. And the answer that I
(01:02:51):
had was that it white people often write characters that
are white by default.
Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
M hmm.
Speaker 5 (01:03:02):
And it takes sometimes an outsider's.
Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
View of.
Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
White whiteness to very specifically and intentionally right white characters.
Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
That bring.
Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
It would be a much different story if David was
not white, the experience of privilege and white exceptionalism, American exceptionalism,
it would be a very different story if David was
not a white man.
Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
You're right, yeah, absolutely, And that was I mean, James Baldwin,
if he was anything, he was a mirror.
Speaker 4 (01:03:52):
You know, he held a.
Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
Mirror up to white America at the time, and you know, pointedly,
and you know, with great use of the language, insisted
we take another look and then another look.
Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
Yeah the I mean, and have it written next to me.
But I was rereading the introduction to the novel last
night after the talkback, and it talks about Baldwin being
incredibly intentional about making this a story about sexuality and
(01:04:34):
not about Baldwin's Blackness.
Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
Mm hmmm, as it intended.
Speaker 5 (01:04:43):
To make people focus more and not attribute people's actions
to race rather than sexuality. And I'm not doing it justice, everybody,
go read it for yourself. And but I just found
(01:05:03):
it fascinating to think about how intentional every little choice
is in the novel.
Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
Yeah, and I imagine it would be easier to view
the text in that way now than then, just because
we have more of an idea of intersectionality now, not
(01:05:35):
enough people, but you know, that's just at the point.
But yeah, I was actually sitting here thinking, like you need,
it's interesting, like who could write for white characters more
than better than a non white person because no one,
(01:05:55):
ironically white people understand whiteness the.
Speaker 4 (01:05:58):
Least Yep, that's true.
Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
So yeah, that's it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
Just thought.
Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
I mean, you know, one of the reasons we started
this podcast was because of the conversations we've always had
as a couple, I mean, and the same ones we
had when we were friends for ten years before we
finally pulled it together.
Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
You know, when we would check in, we would read
or hear or see a story.
Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
And say, I don't know how to process this, you know,
talk to me and talk about how you're seeing this
or how does this feel? Because I don't know, and
it's happened so often. We were like, we're kind of
interesting in that. So let's let's let's sit a microphone
in front of us and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
Right, Because I might get a visceral reaction about something,
but I might be projecting my own feelings onto it.
So I'll ask her and she'd like, well, yes, but no,
you know what I mean. That's and that's we got
to talk to each other, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
Yeah, And that's the thing we try to do the most.
I want to ask each of you in just a
couple of words. You know, we will be seeing the
play tomorrow night, and so uh when this comes out,
you know, we'll talk about it a little bit. Uh
for the episode. What do you want me to leave with?
Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
Dito? Oh? I always have trouble with this question because
I'm always like, I would not want to prescribe to
you what what you would leave? Okay? How about what
do you want me to not miss? M Is that
a better question? Okay? Okay, I think it's It goes
(01:07:54):
back to a little bit what we were talking about before.
It's about the sinister nature of lying to yourself and
lying to others and how those are those are related,
and how this story speaking of how this could have
been prevented, Like there's a story where the lying brings
(01:08:18):
everyone to the down public. We'll see. But so, yeah,
I think it's a story I wouldn't want you to miss.
This is a story about someone who lies in a
very particular circumstance and in a weird way. I don't
totally I don't think of him as a villain because
(01:08:38):
I think it's it's the time that he was living in.
And also we've all lied before, so to me, it's
a kind of it's like in a way, in a
way that all tragedies are a little bit warnings as
a human hinders like oh the danger of not speaking
(01:09:03):
the truth to yourself and us being the truth to
other people. Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Yeah, you know it can hurt those involved and or
destroy a person from the inside.
Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (01:09:17):
Yeah, all right, I'm going to be looking for that, Madge.
Speaker 5 (01:09:21):
Either question, I'm going to stick with, what do I
want you to leave with?
Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (01:09:27):
And I would say I do not want you to
leave necessarily with empathy, but I want you to leave
with understanding. I don't want you to empathize with David,
because he is does very bad things, but I want
(01:09:55):
you to leave with an understanding of what leaves it's
a person to behave that way and to make the
decisions that he makes, and with that understanding and ability
to like recognize maybe that tendency in ourselves and that's
(01:10:20):
the best way to stop ourselves from making the same
mistakes work.
Speaker 4 (01:10:26):
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Yeah again, Giovanni's right through the twenty ninth of June.
We're going to get this episode out as quickly as
we can. I'm excited and hopefully, Yeah, send some send
some folks your way. I want to thank you both
for taking this time with us.
Speaker 5 (01:10:47):
Yes, thank you for having us. Been such a lovely
privilege to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
Hey, come back, keep us informed anytime, right, Yeah, time.
Speaker 3 (01:10:59):
We can talk about other stuff.
Speaker 5 (01:11:01):
We can, we can, and Hey, bring your straight friends
see the show and bring your straight friends.
Speaker 4 (01:11:11):
Yes, I want to hear them, but I was gonna say,
I'm curious to hear what you.
Speaker 5 (01:11:17):
Also, we can hear you in the audience, and we
want to Yes, who holler, giggle, gass, Okay, don't be polite,
we want to hear it.
Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
Oh see you you've done messed up, because that's the
kind of thing go where I am truly thank you
both so much. Thank you, and you know, have a
blessed day and we will hopefully see you after the show.
Speaker 4 (01:11:47):
Yes, thank you, Tudulu.
Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
Bye, blown away, right, blown away. James Baldwin's work in
Giovanni's Room is not.
Speaker 4 (01:12:04):
Light now, that needs to be said.
Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
As soon as the final que in Blackout hit, I
believe I said to you, Yeah, Giovanni's Room is not
a laugh riot.
Speaker 4 (01:12:17):
No, it is not, and it's not meant to be right.
Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
I mean I knew that going in.
Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
Of course we did.
Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
There's a couple of pieces I forgot from the book
and was reminded of. But I'm gonna say, as an adaptation,
brilliant work.
Speaker 3 (01:12:32):
I admittedly have never read Giovanni's Room in its completion.
Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
I did, but it's been so long ago, right.
Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
I've read chunks. I know the plot, I know what happens, right,
I know what it's about. But that's not the same
as seeing it come to life on the stage. And
it was very cleverly done, I believe.
Speaker 4 (01:12:58):
Is what I said.
Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Yes, Oh, the staging was amazing. There was some really
fun work there in terms of staging. In terms, yeah,
the acting was phenomenal. They used everything to tell the story. Yes,
and the acting was was really good. It just good.
Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
Dido and Midge were fabulous.
Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
They were I loved both of their characters. They were like,
you know, the queer truth tellers. They were the oracles.
Speaker 3 (01:13:33):
Actually not even both their characters, because they both played
like that.
Speaker 4 (01:13:36):
Yeah, well they played he Dido jed. Yeah, I believe
Madge character.
Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
No, I think Midge only played okay, that character through
the through the show at any rate. Well staged, well done.
Worth seeing. Definitely, there's a reason it is sold out
until the last week of June. There are tickets available
(01:14:04):
now for the final week and get one.
Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
I love the way they were able to both just
put the text in its like full form on stage
as well as perform the action like it's. The way
it was done was organic and not pretentious, because it
(01:14:31):
could easily end up going that way, because James Baldwin
can lean up against pretentious in his writing style a
little bit. So I think the way they.
Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
Are wicked, smart, and annoyed. Often reads that way.
Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
I mean, it's brilliant work regardless, but I'm just saying.
Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
No, it was handled as well, I think as it
possibly could have. D was a contributor. I think every
aspect of this was respected. James Baldwin's work, his intent,
and his storytelling, you know, was respected. And yeah, it's not.
(01:15:23):
Parts of it are not easy to watch.
Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
Nor were they meant to be.
Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
But the nineteen fifties were not easy to live in
if you were queer, right, and struggling with all of
the societal pressure that came with the time. So yeah,
I think we feel that tension. I think we feel that, right.
Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
You feel the repression, the angst. It was sexy, it
was dangerous. I love how the character of Hella. She's
not stupid.
Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
No, she's not stupid, and she's.
Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
Not far from the far from that actually, right. And
but I mean in terms of like a as a
as a woman, she's brilliant, right, But I mean in
terms of like, as a straight woman marrying this man.
Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
She wasn't. She knew what was well, And the actress
talked about that how she came into character because it
was hard to say the words the character said.
Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
You know, in.
Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
Twenty twenty five, these were nineteen fifties words about womanhood,
and yet the portrayal was brilliant. Yeah, it was really good.
It's really good. I love seeing his work come to life.
Speaker 3 (01:17:01):
Yes, and the dancerliness it was. Yeah, the way certain
moments we were handled physically, it was very choreographed almost,
And I said, it wouldn't have surprised me if at
(01:17:24):
any moment someone just like broke out into a full
on solo, like a dream ballet kind of moment.
Speaker 4 (01:17:29):
It could have happened.
Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
It would have and it would have fit.
Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Yeah, there were there were a couple of brilliant staging
moments that just yeah, it was like, oh, all right,
I see what you did.
Speaker 3 (01:17:42):
So we definitely recommend you have until the twenty ninth
of June of June to get your tickets, which are
going very very quidly to see Giovanni's Room by Quintessen's
Theater at the Sedgwick Theater in Germantown. Never you, Philadeufa.
Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
Yes, our huge thanks to Quintessence for inviting us, for
Dido and Midge for sharing their time with us, And
I really do hope you go out and see what
we saw, because it's worth the trip.
Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
Indeed, thanks shall bye everyone.
Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
Full Circle is a Never Scurred Productions podcast hosted by
Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal, produced and edited by
Never Scurd Executive Produced by Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal.
Our theme in music is by The jingle Berries. All names, pictures, music, audio,
and video clips are registered trademarks and or copyrights of
their respective copyright holders.
An important piece of theater premiered in Philadelphia. James Baldwin's
work is finally coming to life on the stage. We
got to talk with two of the actors and then
we went and saw the performance. So here now is
(00:21):
our interview, followed by our talk about the show.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Enjoy.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Coming to you from the Dunion Table at East Arbury Lane.
Welcome to a very special Pride edition of Full Circle
the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I am your host, Charles Tyson Jr.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And I'm your Martha Mandrigal, and we have something really
special going on during Pride Month, incited, I know, to
Quintessant's theater world premiere adaptation of James Baldwin's groundbreaking novel
Giovanni's Room has been extended through June twenty ninth. It's
(01:19):
playing on stage at the Quintessant Theater at the Sedgewick.
And today we're going to talk to Midgneieth and Jada
von Reugersberg from the cast. Welcome to the Full Circle Table.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Thank you for loving us. Look good.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
That's a loaded question in it, well, right in this world,
in this it's a loaded question. But you're immersed in
something that I think is really important. James Baldwin, one
of my favorite queer writers ever. So much wit and
wisdom and grit, and I what time to revisit it
(02:01):
and be reminded of the stories he left behind. Yes,
how's it been?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
It's been great. I mean, I think Midge and I
both actually get to eat. Correct me if I'm wrong.
My characters are droppers of wisdom in different ways. I
love that. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Yes, a lot of the structure of the play in
the way that it because the novel is all David's memory,
and so the structure of the adaptation really has a
lot of these voices and personalities that he encountered along
his journey re emerge in non non reality, but as
(02:51):
witnesses to what he's doing, as reminders to him and
symbols of those lessons that they give him along the way.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, I love that. So, for those
of those in our audience who are not familiar, what
is the story of Giovanni's Room and who do each
of you portray in the story?
Speaker 4 (03:19):
The story goes a little something like this. You know.
The spoiler alert is that nobody ends up very well.
It's kind of tragic in every dimension. But so there's
a young American named David, and he's kind of a
central character, but I would almost say he's in he's
(03:42):
the anti hero because he well you'll see, but he
is in Europe. He's on a journey to find himself.
He's been in Paris about two years, and he considers
himself straight I think, and he's he's just asked his
(04:07):
girlfriend of two of I think about two years or
some amount of time that he's been in Paris. He
met this woman named Hella, and he asked her to
marry him before the action of the play starts. And
one of the mysteries that I don't really know the
answer to is she doesn't say yes. She says, I
have to think about it. I'm going to go to
(04:29):
Spain and think about it. While she's in Spain, David
has a little adventure at a bar called Guillomes and
Guillom's Bar, where he's sort of I kind of am
the one. My character's name is Jacques. My character kind
of like ushers him in. Jack is an older gay
(04:51):
man and he he takes him to this bar that's
pretty much that's a gay bar, and at the bar
is the flag Princess pleaded by Midge and the bartender's
name Giovanni, and Giovanni is an Italian man, and they
set they set eyes on each other, and everything stepped
(05:17):
off from there because he suddenly is deeply and profoundly falling,
founding himself falling Anni, And while still away, they spend
I think any number of weeks in bed together there
in love, and David is there, doesn't have a job,
(05:40):
so he's just there in this tiny apartment that they
end up sharing, and Giovanni only leaves, I think to
go to work, and they are having this beautiful affair.
But then through a series of letters, you learn that
he was going to come back, and the pressure is
(06:01):
on for Duvid to marry her because his father pressuring
him to come back and start his real life in
this processed of what are you doing over the dream?
What are you doing finding it? And so that's where
the tragedy starts to happen because he sort of out
(06:26):
of this financial and obviously social pressure in the nineteen fifties,
he's like, maybe I can figure out a way Mary
Hella and to be with her, and he totally abandons Giovanni.
He does some bad things to Giovanni leaves him and
is with Hella without any wonder to Giovanni for a month,
(06:49):
and then they happened to me will Street, and everything
goes bad from there and.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
No one ends up happy high queer drawing.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well right, and of the time, I mean, you know,
the book as I recall was written in fifty five
and published in fifty six, so you know, very typical.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Of the time.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
You know, that time when anyone who could be closeted.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Was exactly exactly and it took a lot of break.
I mean, there were there have been examples through even
way before the fifties where people were kind of lived
out loud. But I would say the majority of people,
you know, there's a real fear of losing a job
or not. You know, okay, because that used to happen.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Regularly. And again, well some would have us go back there.
I have no intention, yeah, but you know, but it
was commonplace. So I'm okay with this being tragedy because
well a lot of it was. And you know, like
Dad saying time to grow up and leave all that behind,
(08:09):
it brings it rings just true. I'm also of a
certain age, and it's and you know this this stuff
rings true. I know when you said older gay man,
I'm like Jesus Christ, that's where we are. It's just
where we are, Like, yeah, okay.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
You know what makes it like fel okay to be
a tragedy to me is that it's not a tragedy
because they're queer. It's not a tragedy because he is gay.
It is a tragedy because he refuses to acknowledge it.
And that refusal to admit to yourself who you are
(08:50):
and cutting yourself off from happiness is what ends up
destroying your own life and all of these lives around you.
And at the end of the day, he will probably
be okay because he's he has the most going for
(09:11):
him going back to America or whatever he wants to do,
and everybody in his path is the one that suffers
the most.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Yeah, there's there's there's a lot of letters throughout the show,
and the very last image of the show, which we
had to work on as a special for a movie
a long time, is that he he gets a final
letter from me from Jacques that he rips up and
he throws it away. But there's end and the and
(09:44):
the piece of letter blowback at him, which is a
sort of beautiful idea that you you can try to
destroy the evident, you can try to destroy what's happened,
and you can try to say I didn't I didn't
mess up anyone's life, I didn't lie to anyone. But
(10:05):
truth is going to blow back to you.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Uh always does.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Yeah, Yeah. But I think part of what's so heartbreaking
and strange about what happens to David is that he
he ends up lying a lot, and you start seeing
through him more and more and more and and just
you start to see that those lies are destructive, and
(10:31):
him lying to other people, and him lying to all
of that treating up.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
And sadly, that's a story that we've seen play out
in real life way too many times. People hold on
to the lie and eat you up inside and it
starts to extend out from inside of yourself and affects
everything around you and your whole life. Authenticity is the
only healthy choice, but unfortunately it's not the available choice
(11:01):
for some.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
People, and for some people's it was not encouraged in
our families how they were raised. It's a journey to
find how to speak authentically.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Which I always think about when people say, you know,
hearkening back to the good old days talking about this
time period we think about like not even just queer people,
but like how everyone must have been walking around with
so much repression all the time, just like even like
your your cis had white folks, like because there's so
(11:40):
many constraints about what is a man, what is a woman,
and no one is those things like naturally, really I
don't believe. So it's like that's what we want. We
want to go back to this place of repression and
inauthenticity and lying to ourselves.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Great, the people who want us to go back are
the ones that always worked out for mostly well, I
mean they're having the good old day.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's easy to be nostalgic because
because it's it's sort of imaginary. It's sort of like
when I think back with time that is gone, I
think it was a great time, but there's no truth
that it was a great time. And as saying good
time in your particular right world.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, I mean I was really cute in the eighties,
but we were scared to death to have sex. We
didn't know what's fun, you know, I mean, like we
had great music, but.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
Yeah, you can't desire a thing that you have. You
can only desire the thing that you either have yet
to achieve or the thing that you've lost.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
There, Yeah, there is fair.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I just wanted to say I love the story of
how this kind of came to be, you know, starting
in two thousand and eight, so it's a seventeen year
journey bringing this to the stage. And I love the
fact that it looks like eventually Felicia Rashad was involved.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
How cool is that? Right?
Speaker 5 (13:17):
She's creative Consultant, I think is her official title on
the project. Her and Paul Okball, one of the co
adaptors and the director have a close relationship, and we
were lucky enough to get to even have a little
(13:37):
chat with her in like the last couple previews in rehearsals.
Just check in with her and help us through some
difficult moments because some.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Of the language is.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
Not modern in its point of view, and I think
especially Hella has this speech about like let me be
a woman, let me be your little servant and be
your let me do the things that women are supposed
(14:12):
to do, quote unquote, And I'll give up cigarettes, I'll
wear my hair long, I'll throw away my books. I
will do anything to make this work. Let me be
a woman, and not to tell the actors story for her,
but she was having trouble making that makes sense today.
(14:37):
And Felicious said to let it be poetry that we've
all been in that situation where we want something so
badly that we would do anything, We would compromise our
(14:57):
own desires and our own morals and our own humanity
in order to grasp at this thing that is being
pulled away from us. And we mentioned how like back
in the good old days quote how much of the
(15:21):
struggle of repression was about masculinity and about femininity. And
it's not just a struggle of whether to be you
can be gay or not, but it's also a struggle
of what it means to be a man, what it
means to be a woman. David struggles with his manhood
(15:42):
and in a relationship with another man, he thinks that
he's being treated like a woman, and he struggles with
that because it's so unfamiliar, and like, God forbid, I
get treated like a woman.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Uh huh, because we know how that goes.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
The worst thing you can call someone, Okay, Mitch, tell
me a little bit about your character.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Yeah, flaming Princess is a which is a wonderful name,
and that, like in the novel, is not named. They
are a denizen of the bar that walks away like
a princess flaming. And that's kind of where that I've
(16:33):
done where the title comes from, I know. But in
the novel it's a much older character and it is
another kind of wise bend there, I know what you're
going through, voice using he and him and sometimes it
(16:57):
in the novel, and but but described as having eyes
gleaming with mascara and a mouth raging with lipstick, and
the shirt coquettishly open to reveal a hairless chest like
it's and there's descriptions about this character's body being not
(17:24):
quite round in the places that you'd think it would
be round in the way that they're presenting themselves. And
big language didn't exist, but it is a trans person.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
It is right, Well, it's en, it's a queen, but
that's the language that exists.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
And this character in the bar after she sees and
I'm gonna use she after she sees. Sorry, James, not
to defy you're your writing, James Baldwin, but I'm gonna
use she instead of he. She gives him a warning
(18:07):
that like, I see what you what this little flourishing
relationship that is starting.
Speaker 6 (18:15):
And.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
You're gonna go to hell for the way that you're
gonna treat this man. And it's not said so explicitly
as you're gonna cause a lot of people harm, but
it's a boy like that is dangerous for a boy like.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
You, and.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
You're gonna burn in a very hot fire. And he
tells her to go fuck herself, and she says, no, no,
I will be just fine because you can't touch me.
And he, even if he tries to, he gets ready
(18:57):
to go at her, and nobody else in that bar
is going to let you touch her.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Right, I love that? And he runs into on.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
The street later and she's the one that in public
calls him a fag after he says, you're no, you're
no girl, You're a freak, and she says, and you
are a fag.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Not so different.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I feel like I've had this conversation, right.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
So it's interesting because in the novel she would be
an older, wise kind of seer character, and in our adaptation,
by this is my understanding that the wise, older character
(19:54):
spot was kind of is already exists in the adaptation,
and and you can have multiple of those over hours
and hours and hours of a novel, but in a
two hour play, that role is there. And what is
really impactful is David looking and these two characters looking
(20:18):
at each other as possible reflections of what their lives
could have been, as they're in a very similar spot
in life, and Flaming Princess sees David as I.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Could have been you.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
I could have been a beautiful, blonde, handsome man, and
I could have been privileged, and there could have been
successes in my life. My life could have been easy,
just like yours is. But I admitted to myself who
(20:55):
I am even though my life is harder, my life
is worth living now mm hmm. And that part, I
was brave enough to do it. And you are a coward.
And because you are a coward, you are going to
hurt yourself and you were going to hurt so many
people around you.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
And that's so sad, it is, but that's real. Yeah, yeah,
she sees them as I told you so.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
I tried to tell you, but nothing more I can do.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
I love that was that tell me? Was it? Easy, hard, fun.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
It is all of those things, Okay. Coming into the process,
of course, it was very overwhelming to feel this like
weight on my shoulders of not only the words of
Baldwin and the pressure doing the novel justice, but all
(22:00):
so the pressure to do right by my community, in
our community and represent trans people with dignity and not
as a caricature and not as some not a man
in address and not a joke, but as a person
(22:20):
with dignity and humanity and a person that deserves a
spot in the world, and a proof that we've always
been here. We didn't have the language for it, but
we've always been.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Here, of course.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
And then going into rehearsals, it becomes very fun to
then be oh so powerful and feel the flame and
the fire in that and like put on the accent
and suddenly you feel a lot sexier, I feel a
lot more woutful.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Okay, it's it's a ride. Okay.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Was the part of the character who is still identified
as male? How did you deal with that.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
For you?
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Yeah, she does get clocked on the street by another
character that it's like, what is that not spar off
to Phantom of the Opera, And it's it's about the
separation of the character in the acter.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
That's about being h that is taking care of yourself
in the rehearsal process.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
And that's something we had to make a distinction about
very early on in our agreements as a community, that like,
that is not me, that is how you're treating that person,
but the person the actor that says that on stage.
I am that's my sister and we're friends and we're
(24:06):
in the same dressing room together and we giggle and
kiki and all of that. So I can protect my
humanity person to person knowing that the character gets treated
that way.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
No, I love that, And yeah, it's storytelling from a
different era. And you know that you can do that
and do it well, good for you.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I don't know if I could. At this point. I
feel like I have a hard time, right.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
I definitely feel like, you know, if you come to
the material from that place of honor and respect and authenticity,
it's going to ring true kind of no matter what happens.
So I understand, you know, one to make sure that
(25:03):
certain things are are handled correctly, but when you come
from a place that place of honesty, I think I
feel like that will always come through you know what
I mean?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
And did know?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
You know, I would be remiss if I didn't bring
the other Martha up because you've been known for from
years as Martha Graham.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Cracker from one mark, Yeah, did she make an.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Appearance from one Martha to another?
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Did?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Did did that inform this in any way? You've done
it for so long, and you've just got this amazing
character that has got a part of She's part of
you at this point.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
I don't know. I mean, I played this character name
who as as I said, like, is it like an elder,
older gay statesman? And uh in that way he doesn't.
I don't know. He dropped wisdom in a way that
I hope Martha also does. But he's yeah, no, he
(26:08):
but he's a businessman. He's wearing a suit. He okay,
he's a Belgian guy who works.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I was just trying to fit that in there. I mean,
I was just trying to make sure we got Martha
into the conversation.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
So one thing that I love about him that maybe
Yeah did that because he dropped his these wisdom bombs.
But he's yeah, witty, like he said, he jokes in
a very sophisticated way with David, and he's like he
very clearly sees David the main character, and he kind
(26:48):
of knows how to both like poke at him and
joke with him, and and yeah, I think he wants
to flirt with David and be friends with him. But
he also like, I see how all this lying that
(27:09):
I see you doing your downfall. Ah. So it's it's
a fun character because he gets to do a lot
of different things, and in his wittedness, I would say
he's related to Martha, but yeah, in other ways he's
(27:29):
he's just some dude. Okay, that's fair. And it's funny
because and I play I play both the dad in
Letters Letters to Date one who kind of reinforces like
what we're expecting is for you to marry a woman
so that I can release the me that you keep
(27:51):
asking for too, because until you married, I don't know
what you're doing over there. I'm not gonna let you
waste your money just sing around Europe. So there's this
like father figure that is the data. And then there's
this father figure it was just an older game, and
(28:13):
who was trying to help lead David through the the
CD Gay Underworld of Paris, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And I gotta say, and I love to tell this
story because you know, some of these folks are still around,
like Sandy Beach. Sandy Beach was a bartender in Atlantic
City when I was coming of age. You know, once
I had a driver's lace, my cousin and I would
go to New York Avenue and that's where we found community.
That's that's that was it. And you know people like
(28:44):
like sis Uh, Sonny and and Sandy and they looked
out for us, you know, they they kind of warned
us away from certain people or they told them, don't
leave those kids alone. You know, they were they were
that almost the oracles that kept us alive, and you know,
said welcome. Nobody got carted back then. You know, if
(29:04):
you could get your ass there, come on, come on in.
And it was a real coming of age, you know,
and those people really helped shape my understanding of community
because that's just what they did, you know, was take
care of us and say you know, they knew we
were little idiots, and you know.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
They.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Did their best to make sure we stayed alive.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
That night.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Yeah, yeah, Well I'm performing in Atlantic City of July fifth,
are you what a place called the Anchor. Oh okay, yeah,
but I think that's also on New York. I don't
know that, I.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Is it really I I went there in the daytime
not that long ago, and I thought, Jesus Christ, it's
a parking lot.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Now.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
It was a gighborhood. I mean it was New York.
Avenue was queer as fuck, and you know, we had
well we had Studio six, which was apparently Studio five
before that, and you know, there were two hotels. One
was the Chester Camp with the Life of Me, remember
the other one and the Rendezvous and the Brass Rail.
(30:18):
You know, it was there was so much community because.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
I missed the clever bar names they.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Were and the men who were looking for other the
company of other men didn't have the internet.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Right, so all of those bars were backed on the
weekend yet other people. Yeah, right, that was it.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
That was how we found the community. That was how
we found one another. And you know, and I remember
being mesmerized by the young trans girls who would, you know,
kind of come out to the drag shows and hang out.
And I was just drawn to them because like, how
are you having all this courage?
Speaker 4 (30:57):
You know, in nineteen eighty three or whatever the fuck
I was.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, yeah, that is the thing that I miss about
those spaces, Like you know, I'm coming up in we're
talking the mid nineties, but you know, you still had
that space for community and safety that existed, and I
(31:26):
can't but imagine what it would have been like in
the fifties when it was literally a place of refuge.
And that whole aspect of the queer community is all
but gone because you know, as I'm fond of saying,
you can just pick up your phone and ordered dick
like pizza, So why do you need to leave.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
The house, you know, And that's what happens now. I
mean that happens.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And you know, a big focus of everything I'd do
is community building, you know, again, because I think we need.
It's one of the things I feel so strongly that
we need is to know each other, yeah, more than again,
and to write and to find that common ground.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I've been doing Transway forever with Elizabeth Coffee Williams, and
you know, she was a John Waters actress. She runs
Transway with me, and you know she talks about going
down to Baltimore advocating for herself at Johns Hopkins and
(32:35):
you know the way, and when I got to meet
John Waters, we talked about exactly that.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
We didn't have all these words. You know, we liked
each other.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
We saw another queer and come on over and he said,
you know, and we figured out what to do. And
I'm like, I know there are very many categories now,
but you know, so we can wax nostalgic, but then
we can also say the words help us to know
one another better and with more clarity. So it was
this great discussion to have about just how community came together.
(33:09):
And you know, that was the early seventies. Again, my
era started in the early eighties, but it was so similar. Yeah,
you know, we just because we didn't talk about it.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
In high school.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Nobody was out, at least in my little high school
in South Jersey. Nobody, not on purpose, not as anything. Right,
If you were out, it it was because somebody told.
But that's just that was the time. And so when
we found each other, we found each other and you know,
so many friendships that we still have from that time,
(33:43):
the ones that are still with us.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
And that's a question that I have, you know, because
this work is a period piece, it is a window
into a certain time, I'm place and mindset and so
like how familiar and how foreign were parts of How
(34:16):
how was it getting into this mindset of the characters
to be in this place that is so restrictive yet
freeing and colorful environment yet you know, terrifying.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
I don't know. I think it was a bigger learning.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Opportunity for the members of the cast that aren't queer.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, oh wait, oh I'm sure, Oh yes.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
I mean it sounds silly, but like the one of
the first kind of exercises we did early on was
like kind of bruising each other in a way of
just not being afraid to hold eye contact with each
other and and and say a lot with very little
(35:09):
and and make those connections navigating through the space together.
And how the only way to when you can't just
safely say it out loud, the only way to make
a connection and show interest is in your body and
(35:32):
your mannerisms and in eye contact. And they've like said
cruising and the one one actor was just what right,
And we're like, oh.
Speaker 6 (35:48):
Up, a little bit, all right, do a little bit
of queer one of one ill And yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You know you don't you don't think of what a
far and concept that probably is too straight people, right,
what do you.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Mean not to mention? I imagine like with actors it's probably
not as big of a deal, but like no shade,
when you're dealing with people of a certain age, maintaining
eye contact is like a whole thing. Because I've often said,
you want to like take down a thirty year old,
(36:24):
look them in the eye and don't look away. You
know what I'm saying. So I imagine like that in
itself was an exercise and courage totally.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, you didn't get to answer. Well.
I was thinking about when I was coming up in
the in the mid early to mid nineties, we had
a name for it, which is which it was kind
of one two look. It was always like passing each
other look and usually like the count was one to
(36:59):
look or you're like, oh no they didn't look. I was.
But but yeah, that when I would be walking on
you know, walking out on the streets for no reason
and past someone and you both look back. But that
was grinder. That was like, oh that was grinder. That
(37:22):
was it was like, yep.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Then you have to decide how badly you need to
go in this direction.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah, I don't ever mean to suggest we had more decorum.
I just mean it things happened differently.
Speaker 5 (37:37):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
You couldn't like all your best photographs and post them
up and be like here order the pizza happening in
real time. See you you are more all right? But anyway,
I was going to just mention our fantastic costume designer.
(37:58):
Her name is Colleen and he one of the things
that she did, she and I remember her before we
met her. She got all these photographs of her kind
of reference points for each one of our characters, and
I felt like that was a really helpful kind of
gallery for each one of us to be like, oh yeah,
(38:18):
and a lot of them she took from a talented
mister Ripley aw that movie and talented mister Ripley with
Matt Damon. Anyway, there's that because that's sort of the
same time period and also positiveness. So so yeah, there
she she had photographs or yeah, reference points for each
(38:43):
one of our characters in that was really helpful in
terms of getting us getting getting a window into that
world that era. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah, I here all the time, like you you look
yourself in the costume and then all of a sudden,
that last little piece of the puzzle for the character
locks into place, like oh, there they are.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Yeah, well and that's you know so right.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
So many of those elements that non theater people don't
even think about that are part of the storytelling. Yeah,
you know, the costumes, the lighting, you know, sometimes so
minimal backup, but we're always storytelling, you know.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
That's what I love it. I always love it. Yeah,
and there's a magical not to give it away, but
there's I think in the set time there's an incredible
as a bed in Giovannion and the bar in it,
both bars they visit. So it's really because it wasn't
(39:53):
a very big it's kind of so it's elegant kind
of that. Yeah, and I think really makes the most
of this one piece that has wheels. It's actually kind
of amazingly trick piece, but it can be tipped up
to be the bar and down to people bed's. I
(40:16):
love that.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
That is one thing that I'm looking forward to seeing
how the space is used. Because we were there once
before we saw a production of a fello.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Okay that's what I thought, and that was a.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Very minimal which you can get all the gay othello,
all male, all male, excuse me?
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Well and pretty it was.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
It was different than what I was expecting, because when
I read an all male a fellow set against the
military in.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
The nineteen nineties, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
I think it was earlier than that. It was I
conjured up a different backdrop than what they meant. Was
basically like a traditional performance of Shakespeare in which the
men also played the women characters, which was also fabulous,
(41:16):
just a little different than what I was expected.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
So different.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
How important to each of you is the retelling of
queer history today?
Speaker 4 (41:28):
So important? I mean I think of, you know, having
come up in the nineties. I think of the generation
that lived through the beginning of the age crisis is
really like these saints that I the word is not,
(41:51):
I sort of and in awe of that strength and
that ability to to withstand the political climate, the the
the crisis of mortality, to tap all around you. The
(42:12):
number of funerals that they would attend any given month week. Yeah,
it's just uh, I mean, that's just one example. But
that first generation that with the AIDS crisis, I think
of as my heroes and my maybe my angels and
(42:36):
I have other you know, other gay um hum icons
and other eras Federico Garcia Lorca, a poet in Spain
and and he was shot at the beginning of the
of the fascist regime. There both are being outspoken liberals
(42:57):
and for being gay. So yeah, they're there. It's so
important to know this all happened and how we got
to the perhaps tenuous but like much more uh, the
firmer that we're on now. I think it didn't happen magic, No,
(43:20):
it didn't. And you know, I always say.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
When when someone says these kids today, I'm like, we
raised brats in one fucking generation. Who else can say that?
Speaker 4 (43:36):
Good? And good?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
I want you to have a sense of entitlement. I
want you to have a sense of place, you know.
I want you to know that you belong. You know, Midge,
you said that you know that idea, and it just
it hit with me because you talked about not a
man in address and being taken seriously and not being
(43:58):
a joke was probably the most important thing to me.
That was what I was most afraid of, was being
a joke, was losing all sense of place in this
world or voice in this world. Because I saw so
much erasure, and you know, we have to deal with that.
(44:21):
We've got to peel back those fucking layers to come to,
you know, our sense of selves. And part of it
is history, part of it is knowing it. Part of
it is understanding, you know, what came before.
Speaker 5 (44:37):
And in retelling these stories, it's so important to show
the ugly parts.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
M Oh yeah, Like.
Speaker 5 (44:46):
I admit to getting scared of like what if they
see an imperfect version of our community, They're going to
think that we're and it's like, well, but we're humans
who are all flawed, and we can tell a story
(45:07):
about people that make mistakes and do shitty things to
each other without having to like pause it and comment
about like just a reminder that this is not an
okay thing to do.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
We can have enough.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Media literacy to understand, like that is a person behaving badly,
and I'm supposed to condemn.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
It the views of this homosexual.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Somebody asked me one day. It was a stupid It
was one of those stupid, pointless conversation with someone and
they said to me, what about folsome you know, meaning
the street fair? And I was like, I looked at them,
like you're I said what about serial killers.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
You first, what the fuck.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Since we're just like saying randomness are saying but it's
like whatever someone perceives as the worst of.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
All consenting people that are agreeing to be there where
there are all adults that are consented to be in
this environment.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Oh no exactly, but it.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Was in that person's mind that was like debauchery and
the worst thing they could think about. You know, I
guess at the moment and I'm like, what what are
you doing? But that is what people do, is you know,
we're all supposed to answer for our biggest mess, but
(46:41):
it doesn't work in the reverse, and I want to
I still want to know why.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
Well, and then you figure like they love to boil
down the queer community to anatomy and sex acts, to
which like, now my response is, oh, do you cease
to become straight the moment after you come? Is that
how this works? You know? Like, but because you you
(47:12):
they have But if your entire way of being is
encapsulated by by a sex act, then you know, then
you start thinking about all the different kinds of sex
(47:34):
acts and and what's the worst kind? And and this
this whole like thing of like what makes a queer
person is built up of a ship that's not any
of your business. Uh be things that probably don't actually
exist except because of the Internet, probably do now.
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
But it's it's just crazy. We have this puritanical view
of who we should, what makes a good person, and
what makes a bad person. And I really wish we
could get to this place where, for instance, public figures
can't be toppled because they had sex with someone, you
know what I mean. Like, it's really it's really crazy,
(48:18):
the way our fear of sex, our fear of enjoyment.
Speaker 5 (48:22):
Yeah, well back to the whole fulsome comment, it's like,
if you define a community by the type of sex
they're having, then that community is also going to start
defining itself in more nuanced ways by the type of
sex they're having. And if you make sexuality the entire
(48:49):
identity of a group of people, then they're going to
find ways to make you look at it as a
much more interesting, colorful thing what you think it.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Is, which there can also be a beautiful thing, like
you know, that's how we get folks walking around in
broad daylight with leather dog masks and and and and
butt plugs with tails coming out of them as they
walk down the street. Right, we are nothing if not created.
(49:23):
You can try it, you might like it, that part,
and that's what scares the hell out of them.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
I wish I could remember who first said that straight
people have way more gay sex than gay people because
there's more of them.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
And they went, yeah, there's there's more straight butts to
do butt stuff with.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
Anyway, that's what is entirely.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
I don't think so, I know, right, they say, we
we think everyone's again, I'm like, well, there's spaghetti straight.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
You know, there's what's I guess this is true. They
are uh straight until you heat it up spaghetti. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I feel slow.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Spaghetti straight. I love that. I love that this is happening.
I love that it's happening. I want to see more
of you know, this kind.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
Of work.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Treated with respect, right, treated with you know, queer people
telling queer stories so important that there can't be straight
cast members obviously.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Well, I think that's great, because you know, the best
way to come to a place of agreement and empathy
is to step inside the shoes of another person and
get a different viewpoint. And if more and more people
would just be willing to do that. Can you imagine
the world that we will be living in? Yeah, not
(51:06):
this one.
Speaker 6 (51:06):
And if we're going to use some argument that only
gay people can play gay people, all of that, I'll
let you have that for a moment and counter it
with both David and Giovanni are characters that at one
time claimed to be straight. Of course, Giovanni had a girl,
he had a kid, Spoilers abound.
Speaker 5 (51:32):
David claims to be straight, has a fiance. Like, actually,
it's a more authentic way to tell the story to
have these in a way, to have these characters played
by straight man that just so happened to experience some
(51:55):
of the magic they might have missed and in distance,
I agree.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
With you, And that's a thing like obviously it wouldn't
work with this particular time period. But just like I
watch a movie that takes place in the eighties and
I'll sit there and go, you know, if they had
a cell phone, this movie would be three minutes long.
Just like I look at certain situations and I go,
(52:23):
if we would just admit that bisexuality exists, this whole
story would be irrelevant.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Well it would, And I think queer people have to
be very involved in queer storytelling.
Speaker 4 (52:39):
How's that?
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Yes, absolutely, it's essential, and I can I can point
to it from three miles away when they're not.
Speaker 4 (52:50):
Nobody would say.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
Black gay man is our director, and another gay man
is another co adapter, like and and there are lots
of queer people on the creative team that are overseeing this.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Telling, and.
Speaker 5 (53:12):
We'll allow an ally in there. Ever, so every once
in a while if we have to.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
If we have to, that's fair. It would be very
weird for this. I was imagine this play being directed
by a straight man, and I'm like, that would be
so good, right, right. Part of why I think the
(53:40):
David and Giovanni romance is so feel so legitimate is
because they were sort of guided through that by by
the directors, right.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
I mean, that's that's just where I get hung up.
Speaker 4 (53:59):
What the one. I'm still annoyed the whale.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
I was waiting for it, the whale.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
First of all, we could not find a gay man
of size, really, really, I mean come on. And it
was the acceptance speech that got me, because what Brendan
Fraser tried to say was this is universal storytelling. No
(54:27):
the fuck it is not. Not one of you have
ever lost your job because of who you are. Not
one of you have ever lost your family because of
who you are, and until and unless, No, this is
queer storytelling, my dear, And the fact that you don't
know that is why you shouldn't have the role.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
I mean, that's that's my thing. Like, I'm not saying
that straight actors should never get to play queer roles. However,
queer folks should always get right of first refusal, bam, period.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
That And again, you know, it takes kind of everybody.
I don't I don't like seeing, you know, trans characters
portrayed by sis people without trans people right there, at least,
I don't like it. And again, there's enough of us
that it shouldn't be impossible to let us tell our story.
(55:23):
You find our story so fascinating, but you don't want
us telling them the fuck?
Speaker 4 (55:28):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (55:30):
So we have to make sure they're told otherwise it
doesn't happen, right, And that's what I think is happening here.
Speaker 4 (55:39):
Yeah, thank goodness, it comes back authenticity.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Yeah exactly, Like, not only does authenticity come across loud
and clear, so does the lack of it even more so,
I know it's just yeah, like I was in a
short a couple of years ago, and my character was
(56:05):
queer as well, and there was like one little line
of dialogue and I had to like, I told us,
and I'm changing this line because I wouldn't say that.
They wouldn't say that, like this is when does this
take place? Yeah, no, one's gonna say that right now.
You know, you need you need that that reality. Otherwise
(56:29):
that's where caricature comes in.
Speaker 4 (56:32):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
You know. Like we went to a production of Kinky Boots, Oh.
Speaker 4 (56:42):
That and it was unfortunate and.
Speaker 3 (56:47):
Gay minstrel was the term we walked away with. Yeah,
you know, like the choreography, Like even the choreography it's
like have you medicaleer person like ever in your life?
Like they literally had be walking across the stage going
it was a it was a local I'm not exaggerating, yeah,
(57:08):
straight up, Like and I'm sitting there twitching and then
I look over at her and you were like all
but rocking back and forth. I don't know how the
second act was your your double yo, yo, right right
(57:29):
there it is.
Speaker 4 (57:31):
Yeah, yeah, it just happened.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
I was thinking about we had gone to a talkback
and it was meant to be a talkback, you know,
of a one woman show that was still very much
in the writing. And you know, I said to the director,
a woman would never have said that you wrote, or
actually the writer, I said, you need a woman to
check that dialogue, because there's not a woman who would
(58:00):
focus where you focused in that entire monologue.
Speaker 4 (58:05):
And the actress went and I hope, but it is
now better.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
But it was just like that, you know, the part
of the story you thought was important was from a
male perspective. Yeah, that, and it so it rang in
authentical way.
Speaker 5 (58:28):
Yeah, I mean, I've this is true for writing trans
characters as well. That I've definitely read roles that are
trans women that were pretty obviously not written by a
trans woman. They were written by a trans masculine person,
(58:50):
because it just it is a different experience. Yes, we
are in community and we share a lot of the
same struggle, but there's also stuff that is could it's
just not the same. And the things that trans women
(59:10):
experience are very different than the things that trans men experience.
And you can tell that you are writing about an
experience that you do not understand, even if you want to.
And we appreciate that you're trying and giving us the representation.
(59:33):
But also when I tell you, I don't think that's
what a trans person, when a trans woman would be
so worried about, I think there's some other stuff that
would be more important. I need you to listen to
me and be willing to understand that.
Speaker 3 (59:55):
That's the sticking point right there. We need to listen
to each other because we get caught up in our
own egos and like, well, I know what I'm doing, and.
Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
But do you?
Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
And it looks like you ain't got no friends, you
know what I mean, like no one to tell you
who you know to steer you, and you need to
We need to be able to listen to each other
if we're going to be able to tell or experience
each other's stories.
Speaker 4 (01:00:28):
It's I find it's always so fascinating and so complicated
because here we are, we're doing a play written or
we're telling the story that was that is ostensibly only
with white characters written by black man. So it's also
like you could say, like, how well is he going
(01:00:50):
to tell this story? I do think there's you know,
it's free complicated and you of course, and I don't
want to live in a world where people can only
write about their own experience. But again, I think it's
about the amount of research, the amount of care, the
(01:01:12):
amount of listening. As you said, it goes into into
the storytelling.
Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Right, And you can always like there's a difference between
being well meaning and being respectful. You can always tell
when someone is coming from a well meaning place because
it's like, Okay, that was cute, But when it comes
from a respectful place, you want to be like, oh damn,
you do have queer friends, you do have black friends,
because that was real. And you know, I'm not going
to you know, and I'm not going to pretend that
(01:01:41):
when I first saw that Giovanni's Room was coming that,
you know, when I clipped on the promo trailer and
I saw the cast, I was like, huh. So I
immediately did little research as to who was behind the scenes,
and I was like, oh, okay, right, I'm good again.
Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
I trust I mean, you know, I trust quintessence anyway,
but you know, yeah, I gotta check.
Speaker 4 (01:02:10):
Yeah, I think this came up.
Speaker 5 (01:02:13):
We had a talkback last night at time of recording,
and also in the audience was a book club I
don't remember the name.
Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
Of it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
But it was a book club of mostly black men,
and one man asked, like, what was it like to
be speaking as a but as white actors speaking the
words of a black man. And the answer that I
(01:02:51):
had was that it white people often write characters that
are white by default.
Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
M hmm.
Speaker 5 (01:03:02):
And it takes sometimes an outsider's.
Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
View of.
Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
White whiteness to very specifically and intentionally right white characters.
Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
That bring.
Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
It would be a much different story if David was
not white, the experience of privilege and white exceptionalism, American exceptionalism,
it would be a very different story if David was
not a white man.
Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
You're right, yeah, absolutely, And that was I mean, James Baldwin,
if he was anything, he was a mirror.
Speaker 4 (01:03:52):
You know, he held a.
Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
Mirror up to white America at the time, and you know, pointedly,
and you know, with great use of the language, insisted
we take another look and then another look.
Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
Yeah the I mean, and have it written next to me.
But I was rereading the introduction to the novel last
night after the talkback, and it talks about Baldwin being
incredibly intentional about making this a story about sexuality and
(01:04:34):
not about Baldwin's Blackness.
Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
Mm hmmm, as it intended.
Speaker 5 (01:04:43):
To make people focus more and not attribute people's actions
to race rather than sexuality. And I'm not doing it justice, everybody,
go read it for yourself. And but I just found
(01:05:03):
it fascinating to think about how intentional every little choice
is in the novel.
Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
Yeah, and I imagine it would be easier to view
the text in that way now than then, just because
we have more of an idea of intersectionality now, not
(01:05:35):
enough people, but you know, that's just at the point.
But yeah, I was actually sitting here thinking, like you need,
it's interesting, like who could write for white characters more
than better than a non white person because no one,
(01:05:55):
ironically white people understand whiteness the.
Speaker 4 (01:05:58):
Least Yep, that's true.
Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
So yeah, that's it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
Just thought.
Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
I mean, you know, one of the reasons we started
this podcast was because of the conversations we've always had
as a couple, I mean, and the same ones we
had when we were friends for ten years before we
finally pulled it together.
Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
You know, when we would check in, we would read
or hear or see a story.
Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
And say, I don't know how to process this, you know,
talk to me and talk about how you're seeing this
or how does this feel? Because I don't know, and
it's happened so often. We were like, we're kind of
interesting in that. So let's let's let's sit a microphone
in front of us and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
Right, Because I might get a visceral reaction about something,
but I might be projecting my own feelings onto it.
So I'll ask her and she'd like, well, yes, but no,
you know what I mean. That's and that's we got
to talk to each other, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
Yeah, And that's the thing we try to do the most.
I want to ask each of you in just a
couple of words. You know, we will be seeing the
play tomorrow night, and so uh when this comes out,
you know, we'll talk about it a little bit. Uh
for the episode. What do you want me to leave with?
Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
Dito? Oh? I always have trouble with this question because
I'm always like, I would not want to prescribe to
you what what you would leave? Okay? How about what
do you want me to not miss? M Is that
a better question? Okay? Okay, I think it's It goes
(01:07:54):
back to a little bit what we were talking about before.
It's about the sinister nature of lying to yourself and
lying to others and how those are those are related,
and how this story speaking of how this could have
been prevented, Like there's a story where the lying brings
(01:08:18):
everyone to the down public. We'll see. But so, yeah,
I think it's a story I wouldn't want you to miss.
This is a story about someone who lies in a
very particular circumstance and in a weird way. I don't
totally I don't think of him as a villain because
(01:08:38):
I think it's it's the time that he was living in.
And also we've all lied before, so to me, it's
a kind of it's like in a way, in a
way that all tragedies are a little bit warnings as
a human hinders like oh the danger of not speaking
(01:09:03):
the truth to yourself and us being the truth to
other people. Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Yeah, you know it can hurt those involved and or
destroy a person from the inside.
Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (01:09:17):
Yeah, all right, I'm going to be looking for that, Madge.
Speaker 5 (01:09:21):
Either question, I'm going to stick with, what do I
want you to leave with?
Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (01:09:27):
And I would say I do not want you to
leave necessarily with empathy, but I want you to leave
with understanding. I don't want you to empathize with David,
because he is does very bad things, but I want
(01:09:55):
you to leave with an understanding of what leaves it's
a person to behave that way and to make the
decisions that he makes, and with that understanding and ability
to like recognize maybe that tendency in ourselves and that's
(01:10:20):
the best way to stop ourselves from making the same
mistakes work.
Speaker 4 (01:10:26):
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Yeah again, Giovanni's right through the twenty ninth of June.
We're going to get this episode out as quickly as
we can. I'm excited and hopefully, Yeah, send some send
some folks your way. I want to thank you both
for taking this time with us.
Speaker 5 (01:10:47):
Yes, thank you for having us. Been such a lovely
privilege to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
Hey, come back, keep us informed anytime, right, Yeah, time.
Speaker 3 (01:10:59):
We can talk about other stuff.
Speaker 5 (01:11:01):
We can, we can, and Hey, bring your straight friends
see the show and bring your straight friends.
Speaker 4 (01:11:11):
Yes, I want to hear them, but I was gonna say,
I'm curious to hear what you.
Speaker 5 (01:11:17):
Also, we can hear you in the audience, and we
want to Yes, who holler, giggle, gass, Okay, don't be polite,
we want to hear it.
Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
Oh see you you've done messed up, because that's the
kind of thing go where I am truly thank you
both so much. Thank you, and you know, have a
blessed day and we will hopefully see you after the show.
Speaker 4 (01:11:47):
Yes, thank you, Tudulu.
Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
Bye, blown away, right, blown away. James Baldwin's work in
Giovanni's Room is not.
Speaker 4 (01:12:04):
Light now, that needs to be said.
Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
As soon as the final que in Blackout hit, I
believe I said to you, Yeah, Giovanni's Room is not
a laugh riot.
Speaker 4 (01:12:17):
No, it is not, and it's not meant to be right.
Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
I mean I knew that going in.
Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
Of course we did.
Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
There's a couple of pieces I forgot from the book
and was reminded of. But I'm gonna say, as an adaptation,
brilliant work.
Speaker 3 (01:12:32):
I admittedly have never read Giovanni's Room in its completion.
Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
I did, but it's been so long ago, right.
Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
I've read chunks. I know the plot, I know what happens, right,
I know what it's about. But that's not the same
as seeing it come to life on the stage. And
it was very cleverly done, I believe.
Speaker 4 (01:12:58):
Is what I said.
Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Yes, Oh, the staging was amazing. There was some really
fun work there in terms of staging. In terms, yeah,
the acting was phenomenal. They used everything to tell the story. Yes,
and the acting was was really good. It just good.
Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
Dido and Midge were fabulous.
Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
They were I loved both of their characters. They were like,
you know, the queer truth tellers. They were the oracles.
Speaker 3 (01:13:33):
Actually not even both their characters, because they both played
like that.
Speaker 4 (01:13:36):
Yeah, well they played he Dido jed. Yeah, I believe
Madge character.
Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
No, I think Midge only played okay, that character through
the through the show at any rate. Well staged, well done.
Worth seeing. Definitely, there's a reason it is sold out
until the last week of June. There are tickets available
(01:14:04):
now for the final week and get one.
Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
I love the way they were able to both just
put the text in its like full form on stage
as well as perform the action like it's. The way
it was done was organic and not pretentious, because it
(01:14:31):
could easily end up going that way, because James Baldwin
can lean up against pretentious in his writing style a
little bit. So I think the way they.
Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
Are wicked, smart, and annoyed. Often reads that way.
Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
I mean, it's brilliant work regardless, but I'm just saying.
Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
No, it was handled as well, I think as it
possibly could have. D was a contributor. I think every
aspect of this was respected. James Baldwin's work, his intent,
and his storytelling, you know, was respected. And yeah, it's not.
(01:15:23):
Parts of it are not easy to watch.
Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
Nor were they meant to be.
Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
But the nineteen fifties were not easy to live in
if you were queer, right, and struggling with all of
the societal pressure that came with the time. So yeah,
I think we feel that tension. I think we feel that, right.
Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
You feel the repression, the angst. It was sexy, it
was dangerous. I love how the character of Hella. She's
not stupid.
Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
No, she's not stupid, and she's.
Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
Not far from the far from that actually, right. And
but I mean in terms of like a as a
as a woman, she's brilliant, right, But I mean in
terms of like, as a straight woman marrying this man.
Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
She wasn't. She knew what was well, And the actress
talked about that how she came into character because it
was hard to say the words the character said.
Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
You know, in.
Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
Twenty twenty five, these were nineteen fifties words about womanhood,
and yet the portrayal was brilliant. Yeah, it was really good.
It's really good. I love seeing his work come to life.
Speaker 3 (01:17:01):
Yes, and the dancerliness it was. Yeah, the way certain
moments we were handled physically, it was very choreographed almost,
And I said, it wouldn't have surprised me if at
(01:17:24):
any moment someone just like broke out into a full
on solo, like a dream ballet kind of moment.
Speaker 4 (01:17:29):
It could have happened.
Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
It would have and it would have fit.
Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Yeah, there were there were a couple of brilliant staging
moments that just yeah, it was like, oh, all right,
I see what you did.
Speaker 3 (01:17:42):
So we definitely recommend you have until the twenty ninth
of June of June to get your tickets, which are
going very very quidly to see Giovanni's Room by Quintessen's
Theater at the Sedgwick Theater in Germantown. Never you, Philadeufa.
Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
Yes, our huge thanks to Quintessence for inviting us, for
Dido and Midge for sharing their time with us, And
I really do hope you go out and see what
we saw, because it's worth the trip.
Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
Indeed, thanks shall bye everyone.
Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
Full Circle is a Never Scurred Productions podcast hosted by
Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal, produced and edited by
Never Scurd Executive Produced by Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal.
Our theme in music is by The jingle Berries. All names, pictures, music, audio,
and video clips are registered trademarks and or copyrights of
their respective copyright holders.
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