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PGN FEATURE
Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com Oct. 11-17, 2013
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Barcrawlr Dining Out Family Portrait Out & About Q Puzzle Scene in Philly Worth Watching
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COMPLICATED: Curio Theater’s production of “Romeo and Juliet” (left) and Martha Kemper’s “Luckiest Kid” (center and right) explore relationships between women.
Lesbian relationships at the heart of new theater productions By Larry Nichols larry@epgn.com Two local theater companies are exploring dramas about romantic relationships between women in new productions this month, with a semi-autobiographical debut and a lesbian take on a classic tale. “Luckiest Kid” is a world-premiere, onewoman play with a Greek chorus written and performed by Martha Kemper. It is the story of a young woman who is inspired to love theater by her high-school drama teacher, a lesbian who sleeps with the student. “I’ve been working on this play for a while,” Kemper said. “It’s definitely a story and a play, but it has some autobiographical experience. I went back to high school and drew on memories from there, especially the passion and the importance of my highschool drama courses that moved beyond that period. When that Sandusky story came out, I felt it was really time for me to bring the story to the stage.” Kemper said the tone of the play at times doesn’t match the seriousness of the subject matter.
“It highlights a story that is difficult but the overall impression and tone is one of redemption and healing,” she said. “There’s humor in it, definitely. Because it goes back to this high-school class in the 1960s, all the music is live and made by the actors. It’s really fun. We’re doing a couple of numbers from high-school musicals. The tone of that is very bright. The very subject of studentteacher boundary violation is a serious one. Sometimes having humor and other theatrical elements help an audience to look at a serious theme or topic, and perhaps engage more fully and willingly. One of the really important scenes where the subject is directly discussed is a scene where the girl brings some of her most difficult questions to a puppet. There’s humor and theatricality in that scene that helps the audience get closer to the seriousness of the subject.” Kemper added that the play also asks audiences to consider how the situation would be different if the genders and the sexuality of those involved were different. “We’re able to do things visually at different moments where the director heightened images where there are two men together or a man and a woman together and then the
two women together. It’s sort of inspiring the audience to raise the question of, Would it be different if it were a male couple or mixed gender? So that’s definitely been something on our minds.” Kemper’s hope is that audiences connect with the message of healing. “There’s a line in the play that the relationship between a teacher and a student is sacred. It comes out of ‘Pygmalion,’” she said. “I hope the audience will have felt engaged and related to the protagonist and the story that she tells and recognize the healing process that takes place when a young person is violated by an adult, and also leave knowing that the natural strength to overcome something difficult is part of every human being. Life goes on and we are stronger and more resilient than we think.” Also this month, Curio Theatre Company is giving a Shakespeare tragedy a lesbian slant with its production of “Romeo and Juliet.” Director Krista Apple-Hodge said that changing the genders of some of the characters gives the classic story some new and interesting angles. “We changed not only Romeo’s gender but Tybalt’s as well,” she explained. “I think all
of us come to this play with some cultural assumptions about it. We all know that we have some reference to it, even if it’s just the name. It’s very easy for us as we are rehearsing it to take things for granted, to take moments for granted — how these two fall in love and why. Why this person, right now? Why is this person the person that is taking my attention and focus and inspiring me to risk my life to be with them? When we have two female characters, based on the text, it is clear to us that Romeo has been dating women for along time. She’s been dating for a long time but we also seem to know that Juliet has not. For Juliet, this is not only the first relationship that she’s ever had, this is the first woman she has ever had a relationship with. For Juliet, this is the first time that it even occurred to her that this is a possibility. So it raises the stakes. It forces us, moment to moment, to figure out how these two characters learn to love each other and why they are willing to risk the things that they do.” Apple-Hodge said that, much like the audiences who will see the show, the actors had to examine the nuances that the changes in gender had on the interactions among the characters. PAGE 52