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FREE | voLUME SIXteen, ISSUE ONE | January 05 - 18, 2017

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

THEATER

Activist Roskoff lauds Cuomo embrace of clemency

The best of the London stage

EMPLOYMENT

EDITOR'S LETTER

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been our president

BOOKS

22 REMEMBRANCE

Seventh Circuit asks if sexual orientation discrimination is sex discrimination

Face forward and forgetting

Debbie Reynolds kicked ass

January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

HEALTH

New Year’s Eve, 11th Hour Assault on Transgender Health

Federal judge halts pending regulation barring gender identity discrimination under Obamacare

BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

n an 11th-hour action, US District Judge Reed O’Connor issued a December 31 nationwide preliminary injunction barring the federal government from enforcing part of a new regulation scheduled to go into effect on New Year’s Day that would have interpreted the prohibition on discrimination because of sex under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to extend to discrimination because of “gender identity” and “termination of pregnancy.” The unlikelihood that the incoming Trump administration would defend the regulation in any appeal of the preliminary injunction means that O’Connor has probably gutted those nondiscrimination protections for good, even if Obamacare itself survives in some form going forward. O’Connor, who sits on the Northern District of Texas bench in Wichita Falls, had issued a similar nationwide preliminary injunction regarding the federal government’s enforcement of Title IX of the 1972 federal education statute to protect transgender schoolchildren from discrimination. O’Connor’s newest ruling came in Franciscan Alliance v. Burwell. In both opinions, O’Connor rejected the Obama administration’s position that discrimination because of gender identity or expression is a form of “sex discrimination” that is illegal under federal law. The US Supreme Court may address that question in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board, a case before it involving the efforts of a teenage transgender boy, Gavin Grimm, to use the bathroom corresponding to his gender identity at his Virginia high school. Since the ACA’s nondiscrimination provision incorporates by reference the sex discrimination ban in Title IX that O’Connor earlier ruled on, his analysis followed closely on his August injunction. The ACA provides that health programs or activities receiving federal funding not discriminate on grounds prohibited by four federal statutes and authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to adopt regulations in line with those requirements. Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in federally-funded educational programs, was one of those four statutes. When Title IX regulations were adopted by the Education Department in the 1970s, they included an express religious exemption provision for cases where compliance would violate the tenets of a religiously-controlled educational institution. In the years that HHS worked on developing the regulations due to take effect this week, the views of several federal agencies responsible for GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE

US District Judge Reed O’Connor.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

enforcing sex discrimination bans were evolving regarding gender identity. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was the first government agency to issue a ruling, in the context of a federal job applicant’s complaint, that gender identity discrimination was barred by the sex discrimination provisions of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The EEOC’s analysis followed a ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which arrived at the same conclusion by applying a US Supreme Court precedent dating to 1989, in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, which found that the sex stereotyping that firm used in denying partnership to a woman deemed insufficiently feminine was a violation of Title VII. The HHS regulation drafters adopted similar reasoning to the EEOC and the Sixth Circuit in including “gender identity” in their proposed regulation, published in final form this past May. By that time, the Education Department had taken the position that Title IX bans gender identity discrimination, in the context of Gavin Grimm’s restroom access dispute with the Gloucester County School District. The DOE posted its position on its website and sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to school districts nationwide. HHS, however, did not include in its final rule the religious exemption language from Title IX. Several states and some religious health care providers joined together to challenge the new HHS rule, not in its entirety but in a focused attack on the inclusion of “gender identity” and “termination of pregnancy” in the non-discrimination provisions. In a blatant example of venue shopping, they filed their suit in the Wichita Falls federal court, where O’Connor, appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, is the only judge. O’Connor’s action in the Title IX case in August was not the first of its kind; he has demonstrated a propensity to issue nationwide injunctions against Obama administration regulatory actions on grounds that they exceed executive branch authority.

In the ACA case, the plaintiffs were able to justify their choice of venue by pointing to local members of the co-plaintiff Christian Medical & Dental Association (CMDA), a national organization, who reside within the geographical confines of the Wichita Falls court as well as to local Texas state agencies whose operation in that area would be affected. Other private plaintiffs are Franciscan Alliance, Inc. and its wholly owned entity Specialty Physicians of Illinois LLC. The public plaintiffs are the states of Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas, Louisiana, Arizona, Kentucky, and Mississippi. The heavy hand of Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton looms over the litigation, since Paxton has said, in effect, that his job is to sue the federal government every day on behalf of the right of Texas to operate free of federal regulatory constraints. The parties in this case have a basic argument over the requirements imposed by the HHS rule. The plaintiffs argue they would be required to provide gender transition surgery and abortions or suffer liability to patients as well as potential loss of federal funding. They claim this would violate their rights under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and that the government’s interpretation of the ban on sex discrimination to cover “gender identity” and “termination of pregnancy” went beyond its regulatory authority. HHS argues that the rule does not compel either procedure in every case, merely banning discrimination based on gender identity or a patient having terminated a pregnancy. A health care provider that performs mastectomies, then, could not take the position that it will not perform a mastectomy for a transgender man as part of his transition process since this would be sex discrimination. Likewise, a cisgender woman suffering an estrogen deficiency can receive hormone therapy, and so can a transgender woman.

TRANSGENDER HEALTH, continued on p.16

EMPLOYMENT

Gay Employment Bias Goes Before Full Seventh Circuit

Sitting en banc, judges reconsider whether Title VII sex discrimination protections apply BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

he full Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals bench has heard oral argument on the question of whether sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace is illegal as sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The November 30 hearing, in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, marked the first time that the full bench of a federal appeals court agreed to reconsider that issue, which could result in a landmark ruling that anti-gay discrimination by all employers with at least 15 employees is illegal. The argument before the Chicago-based court included all nine active members of the circuit plus two senior judges who participated in the original three-judge panel that considered Kimberly Hively’s suit against the South Bend, Indiana-based college. The Seventh Circuit, which hears appeals in federal court cases from Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, has ruled several times in the past that the sex discrimination ban in Title VII does not apply to sexual orientation discrimination claims. Both federal trial courts and three-judge appellate panels are bound to follow circuit precedents, which can only be overturned by a full (en banc) appellate bench or the Supreme Court. When Hively appealed a district court ruling that (reluctantly) dismissed her Title VII claim against Ivy Tech, the threemember panel of Judges Ilana Rovner, William Bauer, and Kenneth Ripple held it was bound by precedent to reject her sexual orientation discrimination claim under Title VII. Bauer and Ripple, semi-retired senior judges, were appointed by Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, respectively. Rovner was appointed by George H. W. Bush. Rovner and Bauer joined in part of the panel’s opinion suggesting that the circuit precedent was out of sync with the times and should be reconsidered, while Ripple joined GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

LAMBDALEGAL.ORG

Plaintiff Kimberly Hively and Lambda Legal’s Gregory Nevins outside the federal courthouse in Chicago.

only that part dismissing the appeal based on circuit precedent. Of the federal circuits, the Seventh may have the smallest representation of judges appointed by Democratic presidents –– just three out of nine, with President Barack Obama having appointed Judge David Hamilton and Bill Clinton, Chief Judge Diane Wood and Judge Ann Claire Williams. Among the remaining active judges, Richard Posner, Joel Flaum, Frank Easterbrook and Michael Kanne were appointed by Reagan, Rovner by the elder Bush, and Diane Sykes by George W. Bush. Still, several of the Republican appointees are libertarian conservatives with moderate to liberal views on social issues, and the Seventh Circuit produced one of the most strongly worded pro-marriage equality rulings, authored by Posner, in the lead-up to the June 2015 Obergefell marriage equality ruling at the Supreme Court. Lambda Legal attorney Gregory Nevins represented plaintiff Hively, who alleged she was not renewed as an adjunct professor or promoted to a full-time position because college administrators discovered she was a lesbian when they heard reports she had kissed her samesex partner when being dropped off in the school’s parking lot. (Needless to say, a female faculty mem-

ber kissing a male partner in such circumstances would not occasion any adverse consequences.) Nevins argued that the court should overrule its prior decisions and adopt the view that the prohibition on discrimination because of sex encompasses sexual orientation discrimination claims –– consistent, he said, with the statutory language and supported by Supreme Court cases that have found adverse employment decisions based on sex stereotypes to be illegal sex discrimination. Since Title VII was adopted in 1964, the Supreme Court and Congress have several times expanded the meaning of “discrimination because of sex” to encompass a broader range of cases than Congress would likely have originally contemplated. In some instances, Congress has disagreed with narrow interpretations by the Supreme Court and amended the statute to adopt a broader view, such as when the high court ruled it was not sex discrimination for an employer to exclude coverage for expenses of pregnancy and childbirth from its health insurance plan. In considering whether Title VII extended to claims of “same-sex” harassment, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court that Title VII could be interpreted to apply to “evils” that were “comparable”

to those that Congress sought to address, rejecting the argument that same-sex harassment was not covered because there was no evidence that members of Congress in 1964 thought their decision to include “sex” in the statute would apply to that kind of case. Scalia wrote that we are “governed” by the language of the statute, not the presumed intentions of its drafters. The court also heard briefly from Gail Coleman, an attorney at the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who put forth the agency’s position that sexual orientation discrimination claims are “necessarily” sex discrimination claims. The EEOC formally took that position for the first time in July 2015, ruling on a discrimination claim by a gay air traffic controller who claimed he was denied a permanent position due to his sexual orientation in violation of Title VII. An audio recording of the oral argument makes for fascinating listening, especially the court’s very pointed questioning of the attorney for the college, John Maley, who appeared particularly flustered by Judge Posner’s question: “Why are there lesbians?” This was part of a sequence of questioning that led Posner to suggest that because sexual

SEVENTH CIRCUIT, continued on p.11

FAMILY

Discriminatory Birth Certificate Laws Upheld in Arkansas State Supreme Court says marriage equality does not require listing biological mom’s same-sex spouse BY ARTHUR S.LEONARD

year and a half after the US Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, pockets of resistance remain in the states. The latest example comes from Arkansas, where the state’s Supreme Court ruled on December 8 by a 4-3 vote that same-sex couples do not enjoy the same constitutional rights as different-sex couples when it comes to listing parents on birth certificates. The court’s majority rejected a challenge to two state laws under which wives of birth mothers are denied equal treatment with husbands of birth mothers in this matter. The three dissenters disagreed with the majority to varying extents in separate opinions. The case was brought by three lesbian couples. Two of the couples, Marisa and Terrah Pavan and Leigh and Jana Jacobs, were married out of state and then had a child born in Arkansas, where they resided. The third couple, Courtney Kassel and Kelly Scott, had a child in Arkansas and married shortly thereafter. In all three cases, the Department of Health, headed by Dr. Nathaniel Smith, refused to list the spouse of the birth mother on the birth certificate, relying on gender-specific Arkansas statutes that provide for listing husbands but not wives of birth mothers. The women, represented by attorney Cheryl Maples with amicus assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and the national ACLU LGBT Rights Project, filed suit against Smith. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy Davis Fox accepted the plaintiffs’ argument that Smith, also a named defendant in Wright v. Smith, that state’s marriage equality lawsuit, was bound by the decision in that earlier case, which struck down as unconstitutional not only the state’s ban on samesex marriage but also “all other state and local laws and regulations identified in Plaintiff’s com-

plaint or otherwise in existence to the extent they do not recognize same-sex marriages validly contracted outside Arkansas, prohibit otherwise qualified same-sex couples from marrying in Arkansas, or deny same-sex married couples the rights, recognition, and benefits associated with marriage in the State of Arkansas.” Fox also found support for his decision in the 2015 Supreme Court marriage equality opinion, noting that Justice Anthony Kennedy had mentioned “certificates of birth and death” as one of the benefits of same-sex marriage. Kennedy had written, “The challenged laws burden the liberty of samesex couples, and they abridge central precepts of equality. The marriage laws at issue are in essence unequal: Same-sex couples are denied benefits afforded oppositesex couples and are barred from exercising a fundamental right… The State laws challenged by the petitioners in these cases are held invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.” To Fox, this meant that mar ried same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights of marriage as different-sex couples, including the same spousal rights regarding birth certificates. But a majority of the Arkansas Supreme Court insisted that the US Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell and the state court marriage equality ruling that preceded it had not decided this issue. Justice Josephine Linker Hart’s majority opinion argued that the only questions decided by these prior cases were whether same-sex couples could marry or have their out-of-state marriages recognized. Viewed this way, Smith was not precluded from applying Arkansas statutes to refuse to list the samesex spouses on birth certificates unless the State Supreme Court were to decide independently that doing so violated the constitutional rights of the spouses. This the court was unwilling to do. Since Fox’s ruling had not been

FACEBOOK.COM

Marisa and Terrah Pavan with their baby, whose birth certificate has both moms' names despite last month’s action by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

stayed and the birth certificates the women sought were issued, the court considered the case as an onits-face constitutional challenge to the two laws under dispute. One of the challenged statutes provides that when a child is born to a married woman, her husband will be listed on the birth certificate as the child’s father unless either a court has determined that another man is the child’s biological father or the mother, the biological father, and her husband have executed affidavits establishing that the husband is not the biological father. The other challenged statute provides that when a child is born to an unmarried woman, only she will be listed on the original birth certificate, but a new birth certificate can be issued listing the biological father if the child is “legitimated” by the biological parents subsequently marrying or a court determines who the biological father is. The court insisted both laws are clearly intended to record historical facts about the biological parents of a child, and that the state has a legitimate reason to want the original birth certificate to correctly list these historical facts. Justice Hart quoted an affidavit submitted by Melinda Allen, the state’s registrar of vital records, contending that recording biological parents was “critical” to the department’s “identification of public health trends” and that “it can be critical to an individual’s identification of personal health issues and genetic

conditions.” Allen noted that in adoption and surrogacy situations, the biological parents are listed on original birth certificates, which are then “sealed” when new certificates are issued showing adoptive or intended parents, since the state deems it essential that a permanent record of biological parentage be preserved. Hart said that Judge Fox had “conflated distinct categories of marriage, parental rights, and vital records,” and that the issue was not who can be a parent but rather who must be listed on a birth certificate. On the question of whether equal protection of the law is implicated by this case, the court found that the same-sex spouse is not similarly situated to the husband, and “it does not violate equal protection to acknowledge basic biological truths.” The majority held that “the challenged classification serves important governmental objectives” outweighing the claims of the spouses. The couples did not challenge a third Arkansas statute that provides that a husband will be listed on the birth certificate in cases where his wife is artificially inseminated so long as he gives written consent to the procedure –– perhaps because the spouses here had not provided such authorization. The attorney representing Smith conceded that this third law does create equal protection problems in cases of same-sex spouses. In a concluding paragraph, the court “admonished” Fox for having made a public statement that if the Arkansas Supreme Court granted a stay of his order in this case, it would be depriving people of their constitutional rights. “A remark made to gain the attention of the press and to create public clamor undermines ‘public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality,’ not only of this court, but also of the entire judiciary,” wrote Hart. Fox was formally “admonished” for “his inappropriate comments made while performing

ARKANSAS, continued on p.9

January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

MARRIAGE

But In Indiana, County Clerk Can’t Refuse to Issue License Fed court rejects Title VII religious bias claim by Christian unwilling to serve lesbian couple BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

federal district court has ruled that an Indiana deputy county clerk has no protected religious grounds on which to refuse to carry out her official duty to process a marriage license application from a same-sex couple. Ruling in an employment discrimination case brought under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Judge Richard L. Young, on December 15, found that Linda Summers’ religious beliefs did not shield her from being dismissed for failure to do her job. Incidentally, it was Young who ruled in 2014 that Indiana’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Summers worked in the Harrison County Clerk’s office, where her elected boss was County Clerk Sally Whitis. Though Summers’ responsibilities included the processing of marriage license applications, she did not perform marriages or even sign the licenses. When the Supreme Court, in October 2014, declined to review Judge Young’s marriage equality ruling, which had been affirmed by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Indiana’s attorney general issued a memorandum that “county clerks will be prohibited from denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples so long as all other marriage license requirements are met.” Following up on that memorandum, Whitis instructed her employees, “Even though it may be against your personal beliefs, we are required by state law to process their applications. We are only doing the paperwork and not performing their ceremony. I expect everyone to comply.” That December, Summers, not noticing

ARKANSAS, from p.8

the duties of his judicial office.” Chief Justice Howard Brill, in a separate opinion, agreed with the majority that Obergefell was a narrow holding that same-sex couples have a right to marry but did not directly settle the question of birth certificates. However, he wrote, “The question here is the broader impact of that ruling as it affects birth certificates,” and he added, “The logical extension of Obergefell, mandated by the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, is that a same-sex mar ried couple is entitled to a birth certificate on the same basis as GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

that the two applicants for a marriage license were women, began to process the paperwork, at which point, according to Young’s opinion, she “realized that the individuals requesting the marriage license were both the same sex. Summers hesitated, unsure what to do. After a moment, she decided that she could not process the application and motioned for Whitis to come and assist.” “I told her this is a same-sex marriage license, and I can’t do it,” Summers testified. After some back and forth, Whitis “jerked the paper out of my hand and she took it and sat down at her desk and took the couple,” according to Summers. Whitis processed the license herself but told Summers such a refusal “could not happen again, because it was her job to do those.” After consulting with the county attorney, Whitis decided to discharge Summers. She testified that “Summers’ religious beliefs did not play any part in the decision to terminate her.” Summers wrote Whitis, asking her to “accommodate my sincerely held religious belief by not requiring me to perform the task of processing marriage licenses for same sex couples.” Whitis responded by informing Summers in writing that she was terminated “due to insubordination.” Summers testified that she is a Christian and could not process marriage licenses for samesex couples because it was “against God’s law” to do so, and God’s law is “above legal law.” Young noted that under Title VII it is unlawful for an employer to discharge any individual because of their religion. Looking to the most recent Supreme Court precedent on that issue, from 2015, he found that two elements must be present to sustain a religious discrimination claim –– that the religious belief or practice con-

an opposite-sex married couple,” because “the right to a birth certificate is a corollary to the right to a marriage license.” Arguing that it was high time the Legislature amended its laws in compliance with Obergefell, Brill wrote, “The times they are a-changin’. All three branches of the government must change accordingly. It is time to heed the call.” In her separate opinion, Justice Rhonda K. Wood pointed out that this litigation had stimulated the Health Department to modify its procedures, noting that Allen’s affidavit stated that the department “will issue birth certificates listing both same-sex parents if the

flicts with an employment requirement and that the need for an employer to accommodate that religious belief or practice motivated a discharge or other adverse action. Young found there was “no objective conflict between Summers’ duties as a deputy clerk and her religious opposition to same-sex marriage. When it came to marriage licenses, Summers’ job merely required her to process the licenses by entering data and handing out information… At bottom, she was simply tasked with certifying –– on behalf of the state of Indiana, not on her own behalf –– that the couple was qualified to marry under Indiana law. The duties were purely administrative.” The judge added, “She was not required to attend ceremonies, say congratulations, offer a blessing, or pray with couples. Her employer did not make her express religious approval or condone any particular marriage. Summers remained free to practice her Christian faith and attend church services. She was even free to maintain her belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. Thus, she was not forced to ‘choose between religious convictions and job.’” Young found support for his conclusion in the ruling by US District Judge David Bunning against Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis in 2015. Although Davis had tried to rely on the First Amendment rather than Title VII, this would not lead to any different result. “Title VII is not a license for employees to perform only those duties that meet their private approval,” Young wrote. Judge Young was appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton in 1997 and unanimously confirmed by the Senate.

hospital submits documentation reflecting that fact,” although the plaintiffs, during oral arguments, disputed how consistently this new policy is being implemented. However, departing from the majority, she wrote that in her view, “states cannot constitutionally deny same-sex couples the benefits to marital status, which include equal access to birth certificates,” and suggested that the Legislature should amend the statute to comply with this conclusion. Justice Paul Danielson dissented totally from the majority opinion, stating that he would affirm Fox’s ruling, agreeing that the state court’s marriage equality ruling

and Obergefell settled the matter and the statutes as written were clearly unconstitutional. Wood and Danielson dissented from the majority’s admonishment of Fox, Danielson arguing at length that it violated Fox’s constitutional free speech rights, and citing a US Supreme Court decision he said “cautioned against repressing speech under the guise of promoting public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary. In short, the fact that members of this court have personally taken offense to the circuit judge’s remarks is not a sufficient basis for suggesting that those remarks violate our disciplinary rules.”

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

Activist Roskoff Lauds Cuomo Embrace of Clemency

Longtime LGBTQ politico pressed governor for years to reward rehabilitation BY PAUL SCHINDLER

weeping clemency action by Governor Andrew Cuomo on December 30 –– in which he commuted the sentences of seven felons, pardoned five others, and conditionally pardoned 101 nonviolent youthful offenders –– came as welcome news to a longtime gay leader who in recent years has made rehabilitated convicts a key mission in his activism. Allen Roskoff, who has been active in LGBTQ politics since the immediate post-Stonewall years, is the founder and co-chair of Candles for Clemency, which since 2009 has pressed for commuted sentences and pardons for convicts with demonstrable records of rehabilitation. Among the group’s actions have been several large rallies near Cuomo’s Westchester County home, and Roskoff has, at times, been a harsh critic of the governor, who up until last week has issued only a handful of clemency grants. In the wake of the governor’s December 30 announcement, however, Roskoff sounded a different note. “We are excited to see that these elderly individuals receiving clemency will not have to die in prison,” he said. “This is a proud moment for New York and our state’s ability to lead the nation in criminal justice reform. Our efforts show that through activism and relentless efforts results can be achieved. Governor Cuomo’s heroic actions should serve as a model for our nation.” Roskoff took particular satisfaction in the governor’s action regarding Judith Clark, a 67-yearold lesbian who was convicted for her role as getaway driver in the 1981 Rockland County Brink's robbery that involved the murder of two police officers. Clark was part of a group of radicals from the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army that staged the audacious daylight robbery. Roskoff’s organization, which is co-chaired by Tony Hoffman, a former president of the Village Independent Democrats, has long emphasized Clark’s evident rehabilitation –– she earned several degrees, taught pre-natal parenting classes for pregnant inmates, co-founded an AIDS group, and trained service dogs used by law enforcement and disabled veterans. An inmate at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, Clark, in good measure due to the efforts of Candles for Clemency, won support from a broad swath of prisoners’ advocacy groups, attorneys, and celebrities, with more than 1,000 people writing Cuomo urging clemency for her. Clark, however, was sentenced to a minimum of 75 years in prison –– a longer sentence than most of those involved in the Brink's robbery and

CANDLES FOR CLEMENCY

DONNA ACETO

Judith Clark, at the time of her prosecution in the Brink's robbery and murder case.

Activist Allen Roskoff at a 2014 Candles for Clemency rally near the Westchester County home of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

murders –– and would not have been eligible for parole until 2056. Cuomo’s action did not release her from prison but rather commuted her sentence to a minimum of 35 years in prison, which means she will be eligible for parole this year. In his statement making the clemency announcements, the governor cited Clark’s “exceptional strides in self-development,” and said of his decision to dramatically step up in his willingness to grant relief to long-time convicts, “With these actions, we have taken one more step toward a more just, more fair, and more compassionate New York for all.” According to Candles for Clemency, the national prison population grew from around 200,000 in the early 1970s to a high point of 1.6 million in 2009, that exorbitant growth fueled in good measure by the war on drugs. The roughly three percent decline in the prison population since 2009, the group asserts, is due to changing attitudes toward the crime-fighting efficacy of long prison sentences –– as typified by a study from NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice it cited –– as well as the work of prison reform advocates. Still, Candles for Clemency noted, there are large numbers of elderly inmates serving long sentences handed down decades ago. The group cited statistics showing that over the past 13 years, New York State’s general inmate population has declined by 23 percent, while the number of prisoners over 50 has skyrocketed by 81 percent. That, despite the fact that recidivism among elderly ex-cons is low and the cost of providing health care to senior citizens in prison is a heavy burden on the state. The New York Times, this week, published a detailed account of a visit Cuomo paid to Clark in prison early this past fall, where the only others in attendance were the Bedford Hills superintendent, the governor’s out gay chief counsel, Alphonso David, who formerly worked as an attorney at Lambda Legal, and a black Labrador

that Clark had trained as a service dog. “When you meet her you get a sense of her soul,” Cuomo told the Times. “She takes full responsibility. There are no excuses. There are no justifications.” Not everyone shares the governor’s faith in Clark’s rehabilitation, of course. Rockland County Executive Ed Day, a Republican who is a former NYPD officer, in a written statement called Cuomo’s action “a vicious slap in the face to every member of law enforcement. The blood of Nyack police Sergeant Edward O’Grady, Officer Waverly ‘Chipper’ Brown, and Brink's guard Peter Paige will be on her hands until the day she dies. Judith Clark is a domestic terrorist. Her only place in a civilized society is behind bars.” But not every local politician echoed Day’s hard line. Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, an out gay Democrat who represents Rockland County and other parts of the Lower Hudson Valley, issued a statement saying, “I want to commend Governor Cuomo for commuting the sentence of Judith Clark, a living example of the rehabilitative potential of our criminal justice system. Clark has served over 30 years in prison, repeatedly demonstrated remorse for her participation in the Brink’s robbery, and endeavored to better herself by earning college degrees and leading educational and health initiatives to benefit her fellow inmates, prison staff, and prison administration. Our prisons should focus on effective methods for rehabilitation and reentry, which includes permitting parole for low-risk, elderly offenders who have materially demonstrated their reformation. Judith Clark deserved to spend many years in prison for her role as an accessory to the terrible crime that resulted in the death of two police officers and a security guard, but after nearly 35 years she has been punished and no longer poses a threat to our communities.” January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

SEVENTH CIRCUIT, from p.7

orientation seems like an immutable characteristic traceable, at least in part, to genetics and biology, lesbians and “homosexual men” are a “different sex” from heterosexual women and men, leading to the natural conclusion that sexual orientation discrimination is sex discrimination. Posner also rejected the college’s suggestion that Title VII must be limited by the intentions of the 1964 Congress, asserting that courts do not treat statutory language as “frozen” at the time it is adopted. He cited as examples the 14th Amendment, whose framers would have been shocked at Brown v. Board of Education, the case that outlawed racial segregation of public schools in 1954, and the Sherman AntiTrust Act, adopted in 1890, whose modern interpretation would be unrecognizable to its drafters.

The New York-based Second Circuit will shortly hear –– and the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit recently has heard –– oral arguments about whether sexual orientation discrimination claims can be brought under Title VII, but the Seventh Circuit will likely be the first to issue an en banc opinion on the subject. If the court rules in favor of Hively, the college will have the option of filing a petition with the Supreme Court to review the case. Such a decision by the Seventh Circuit would create a split among the federal circuit courts on a question of national importance, setting up an interesting policy question for the incoming Trump administration: whether to intervene and which side to take. The EEOC’s participation on Hively’s side would not preclude a new solicitor general from deciding to argue the opposite position.

The only judge whose questioning of Lambda's Nevins communicated any disagreement with the plaintiff's position seemed to be Diane Sykes, who is on President-elect Donald Trump's list of prospective Supreme Court nominees.

Other judges seemed more comfortable with treating the issue as a logical extension of the Supreme Court’s Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins sex-stereotyping decision from 1989 and its Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore same-sex harassment ruling from 1999 –– suggesting flexibility in adapting the meaning of “because of sex” in response to changed social understanding –– or of Loving v. Virginia, where the high court held that penalizing interracial marriage was race discrimination. Chief Judge Wood questioned why the college, which has adopted a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation, was asking the court to hold Title VII inapplicable. Judge Easterbrook pointed out that Hively’s appellate brief relied heavily on Loving v. Virginia, and asked why the college’s brief did not address that case at all. Maley struggled to come up with an answer, having evidently not anticipated the question. GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

BNA Bloomberg’s Daily Labor Report, summarizing the hearing, suggested that at least six judges (a majority of the 11) seemed skeptical of the college’s arguments. The only judge whose questioning of Lambda’s Nevins communicated any disagreement with the plaintiff’s position seemed to be Diane Sykes, who is on President-elect Donald Trump’s list of prospective Supreme Court nominees. A vote that Title VII covers sexual orientation discrimination, coming just as Trump’s decision on a nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia is being made, might be disqualifying in the eyes of Attorney Generaldesignate Jeff Sessions and Senate Republicans, so few were predicting that Sykes would side with Hively. The Washington Post in a story about the hearing speculated that the only real question was which theory the court would use to rule in favor of Hively’s position that Title VII covers sexual orientation claims. But counting chickens before the eggs hatch is a perilous venture.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR PUBLISHER

He’s Been Our President

JENNIFER GOODSTEIN

jgoodstein@cnglocal.com FOUNDING EDITOR IN-CHIEF & ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER PAUL SCHINDLER

editor@gaycitynews.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR

DUNCAN OSBORNE

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BY PAUL SCHINDLER

oo cerebral. Unwilling to engage in bare-knuckles political war with his Republican enemies. Naïve, in fact, about his ability to find common ground with a GOP determined to undermine, even delegitimize him from Day 1. Those are the typical knocks –– especially from progressives –– aimed at Barack Obama, the first Democratic president to win a majority of votes twice since Franklin Roosevelt and the one who finally delivered on Harry Truman’s pledge nearly 70 years ago to reshape health care in America. That goal achieved even as he brought the nation back from its worst economic slump since the Great Depression –– to an unemployment rate just over 4.5 percent as he leaves office. These common critiques have been paralleled by dissatisfaction among LGBTQ activists, especially during the president’s first term. The White House equivocated on the push to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, intending a military review of that policy to forestall the need for immediate repeal. The failure to push the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (a measure the community now agrees was insufficient, anyway) at the same time missed the slim window of Democratic congressional control. Obama hesitated on marriage equality, only pushed over the line in advance of his reelection by his loquacious vice president. Journalists and historians will weigh all these questions for a long time to come –– and activists can rightly claim credit for keeping pressure on their ally/ president to turn the poetry of campaigning into meaningful governing prose. But with just weeks to go until Barack Obama leaves the White House, one thing cannot be denied: he was our president in ways no one ever had been before. To be sure, despite candidate Obama’s lofty 2008 rhetoric, specific action on LGBTQ issue came slowly. Still, after more than a decade’s delay, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed in 2009, and the new administration ended a pol-

icy dating back to 1993 that barred entry and immigration into the US by HIV-positive non-citizens. Even as the administration moved too cautiously for advocates on DADT repeal, it took the first of what in time would be many significant steps to advance the community’s interests through administrative actions. Hospitals receiving Medicare or Medicaid funding –– essentially all of them –– were required to grant visitation rights to patients’ samesex partners. In the early ramp-up of Obamacare, the Department of Health and Human Services made clear it would work to end discriminatory barriers to transgender people receiving appropriate health care. In global affairs, Hillary Clinton, while secretary of state, told the world that gay rights are human rights. In its earliest response to lawsuits challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, the administration stumbled badly, relying on discredited, even offensive justifications for the 1996 law. But when given the opportunity of a case in a federal judicial circuit that had no existing precedent on how sexual orientation discrimination claims should be evaluated, Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, came through. Faced with Edie Windsor’s suit in the New York-based Second Circuit, the Justice Department analyzed the issue from scratch and determined that the statute merited heightened scrutiny, a demanding judicial standard it could not survive. From that point forward, the administration would not defend DOMA in court. It is hard to overestimate the significance of the US solicitor general declining to defend a law before a federal appeals court or the Supreme Court. By the time DOMA arrived at the high court in 2013, it was left to the House Republican leadership to argue on its behalf. By then, of course, Obama had endorsed marriage equality, and when the underlying question of same-sex couples’ right to marry reached the Supreme Court two years later, the Obama administration was once again on the side of our community. On the evening of June 26, 2015, when the marriage victory was handed down, the White House was bathed in rainbow lights.

In his second term, Obama endorsed the framework for a more comprehensive nondiscrimination measure –– going beyond employment to incorporate all the protections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act –– though the new Equality Act has been stymied in the GOP Congress. But by then, the president had issued an executive order barring sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination by businesses contracting with the US government. As in other areas, Obama became increasingly bold in using executive action to advance important policy goals on our community’s behalf. The Department of Health and Human Services has been in court defending its regulation that discrimination under Obamacare based on gender identity is illegal sex discrimination, a position pioneered by presidential appointee Chai Feldblum at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an agency that has affirmatively litigated to establish the precedent that both gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination are already protected under the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s sex discrimination prohibition. The Education Department, applying that analysis, informed public schools they must allow transgender students access to bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. The Justice Department sued the state of North Carolina for its notorious HB2, an action announced in a dramatic press conference where Attorney General Loretta L ynch said, “Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself… No matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.” And that is where Barack Obama brought his presidency over the course of eight years. The cautious ally had, in fact, become the fierce advocate he once pledged to be. As we prepare to battle the antiLGBTQ officials Donald Trump has named to helm the agencies mentioned above –– which have recently worked so hard for our well-being –– let’s always remember that there is another way. January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

PERSPECTIVE: Snide Lines

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Donald BY SUSIE DAY

Dear President-Elect Trump, I was blue the other day, thinking how little power I have over my life. Like, how I didn’t vote for you, but how you’re going to be president anyway? Bummer. I’m also bummed by the fact that, for Christmas, I sent my sister –– who also dreads the horrors boded by your presidency –– a copy of “Man’s Search for Meaning.” This is a classic memoir by Viktor Frankl, a psychologist who lived through three Nazi concentration camps to compose profound lessons on spiritual survival and how the need to find meaning in life is the essence of our humanity. I figured this book would be great prep for your oncoming fascist oligopoly, Mr. Trump, so I was excited for my sister to get it! But she never did. Some stranger busted open her mailbox and stole the book, so all my sister got was a ripped up, empty bubble-padded envelope. Now some klepto loser is reading up on how to reclaim their humanity in a concentration camp. Groping for meaning here, maybe you’re right: maybe losers are the enemy.

Dear Not-Yet-President Trump, I’m beginning to think that loser stealing “Man’s Search for Meaning” has its own meaning. Like, have you noticed how, the less losers have, the more they want? And what about those identity-politicos who call themselves victims –– victims who could be out to get us? These people are dangerous for our freedom-loving autocracy, Mr. Trump. I mean, if losers really wanted to be free, they would be winners, right? Losers definitely do not heed the uplifting words of your own childhood pastor, Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote “The Power of Positive Thinking”: “[F]ormulate and staple indelibly on your mind a mental picture of

yourself as succeeding.” Peale also says to “hold this picture tenaciously,” always identifying with it, “no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.” I think I’ve just seen the Light, Mr. Trump. Prosperity is God’s way of telling us He loves us, and that only losers end up in concentration camps. So meaning, schmeaning. As Bertolt Brecht used to say: “Why be a man, when you can be a success?” Take that, Viktor Frankl.

Dear Positive Pre-President, It’s obvious you have a deep, personal relationship with God because all your life you thought POSITIVE! No matter how often those huge, jealous losers pointed out your business or personal “failures,” you kept on land- and pussy-grabbing. Always thinking the best of yourself, stapling indelible mental pictures of success onto your mind until your mind was full of positive mental staples of indelible pictures of success. Big land- and pussy-grabbing success! In your presidential campaign, it was Survival of the Positivist. You faced down all the negative polls; you never believed anyone could reasonably criticize you; you never once thought Alec Baldwin imitating you was funny. In New Age parlance, you “created your own reality” to become our 45th president. And now you’re about to create our reality! Which is why I have to start positively stapling my own mind to create a mental reality where climate change does not exist and nuclear war is not an option.

Dear President-of-Me, I’m so tired of this Russia media hysteria. You and Vladimir Putin may look like fuck-buddies but, as Masha Gessen wrote last summer: “The recent Putin fixation is a way to evade the fact that Trump is a thoroughly American creation that poses an existential threat to American democracy.”

Don’t worry about Masha, Mr. Trump. She’s just jealous she doesn’t own a string of casinos. Truth is, you do embody the spirit of America. You are how America got great: on the backs of losers. You are how the West was won: taking losers’ land. It’s like you’ve built a giant mental wall of positive staples around a bunch of Indigenous people and Muslims and African Americans and queers and Mexicans and immigrants –– to keep them away from my sister’s mailbox. Thanks. I feel better.

Dear DT, Horrible nightmare! I dreamed you were sitting in a theater balcony, watching a play, and this longhaired, brown-skinned Middle Eastern guy in a robe rushes in, takes out a semiautomatic, pumps five rounds into the back of your head, and yells, “I’m Jesus Christ and I approve this message!” A SWAT team bursts in, wrestles Jesus to the ground, charges him with terrorism, and flies him to Guantánamo, where he’s slated to undergo “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” Then the scene shifts to an upstate Jewish home for the aged, where Batyah Feldstein looks up from the New York Times account of this incident and remarks, “Such a good boy, that Jesus. He reminds me of those nice Russian anarchists who were always trying to assassinate the tsar.” For real, Donald. I kind of pictured the Second Coming differently. Just between us, is it possible that Jesus does not have the One True Religion? Like, maybe He needs to tweet more and NOT grow his brand awareness among poor people? I mean, strident, pro-loser verses about how it’s “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven?” Seriously??? I continue to search for meaning, Mr. Trump, awaiting your positive mental guidance. I know you’ll continue to give that to me every day. Even unto the end of the world. Probably around next Tuesday. Susie Day is the author of “Snidelines: Talking Trash to Power,” published by Abingdon Square Publishing.

PERSPECTIVE: A Dyke Abroad

Nightmare on Penn Street

BY KELLY COGSWELL

’ve decided to consider the next four years as an existential opportunity to be liberated, not by hope, but by fear. I’m not joking. I’m waking up at night in a cold sweat I usually reserve for mice infestations. The election really did happen. And in about two weeks DT’s sneery GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

face r eally will be delivering rambling addresses in front of the presidential seal, as he distractedly tweets poisonous nonsense and toys idly with the big red button that could nuke us all. And with no further ado, his host of actual Nazis and climate changedeniers and billionaire conmen and anti-gay, anti-women vigilantes will be unleashed to chew up, shit on,

and destroy every aspect of the government from regulations shaping the entire US economy to the federal Justice Department. Probably, the only thing left standing will be the military, which will be given bright and shiny new toys. Bye-bye Obamacare and my beloved migraine meds. Along with the liberty and justice I still don’t regret pledging myself to.

Already the subways and streets are bubbling up with increased hostility thanks to the hateful tweets of the Bigot-in-Chief and to a media that no longer distinguishes what is newsworthy from what gets hits. And as the hate speech is amplified and becomes normalized, so does violence. Anti-queer, antiwomen, anti-Muslim, anti-Jew, anti-black, anti-anything violence. Not everybody on the Left

DYKE ABROAD, continued on p.16

PERSPECTIVE: Media Circus

A Gay Walks into a Bar –– Ow! BY ED SIKOV

spate of articles has appeared lately on the su b j e c t o f g a y b a r s shutting down, and strangely, they all conclude that it’s A Good Thing. In the last two weeks, the Chicago Tribune, The Economist, and the website The Good Men Project have all published articles that examine the trend, which expressed itself locally on New Year’s Eve when g lounge, the popular gay hangout on West 19th Street in Chelsea, held its closing night bash. So what killed g lounge, and why–– as the Trib piece asks in its headline –– “From Indianapolis to London: Are gay bars going extinct?” “Since 2015 at least five have closed their doors in Indianapolis, about half the city’s total,” the Trib writes. “Among the casualties: the venerable Varsity, the city’s oldest gay bar, dating back to the 1940s. In the past six months Talbott Street, long-known for its drag shows, closed, as did the 501 Eagle, a bar favored by leather enthusiasts since 1986.” What shocks me most about this is the revelation that until very recently Indianapolis sported 10 gay bars. Indianapolis! This goes a long way toward explaining Indiana Governor and soon-to-be-Vice President Mike Pence’s pronounced homophobia –– his state’s capital featured a gay bar on practically every block! He couldn’t take a step outside the capitol without being forced to see gay people drinking, laughing, and enjoying the company of other gay people. It obviously drove him berserk. The Trib quotes a bartender who offers one theory of gay bars’ demise: “Jack LaFary poured the last of the drinks at the 501 in October but had seen the end coming well before then. ‘Guys my age stopped going out to bars all the time,’ said LaFary, 48, ‘and the new generation never did catch on.’” One wonders if LaFary is the name he was born with. “It’s the same elsewhere,” the Trib continues. “The 501’s closing ‘comes just weeks after the Barracks closed in Louisville,’ reported

GLOUNGE.COM

g lounge was a fixture in Chelsea for nearly 20 years, until New Years Eve.

So what killed g lounge –– and why –– as the Trib piece asks in its headline –– “From Indianapolis to London: Are gay bars going extinct?”

the gay news website Great Lakes Den, lamenting that ‘most of Indiana will no longer have easy access to a leather bar.’ San Francisco was down to just a few dozen gay bars compared with more than 100 in the 1970s, according to a 2011 report in Slate, and Manhattan had but 44, half as many as it did at its gay-bar peak in 1978. In London the Queen’s Head, a gay bar since the 1920s, closed in September, going the way of other prominent gay bars in that European capital.” It takes a few paragraphs to get there, but the Trib finally gets to the fundamental reason that gay bars are disappearing: “‘It all changed with smartphones,’ LaFary said, referring to the widely held theory that mobile dating apps like Grindr, by facilitating meetups online, helped render bars unnecessary. ‘When I first came out, you went to a gay bar to meet gay people. But the smartphone changed that, and it was an all-of-a-sudden thing. Business just dropped, and it wasn’t a gradual thing. It was, like, boom.’”

In times past, if you wanted to get laid you had to spend money on drinks and a coat check –– money that might have been better spent on rent. You also had to exhibit yourself –– in person –– to a crowd of sex-hungry men or women who immediately compared (or as I experienced it, contrasted) you to the seemingly perfect specimen who commanded the bar patrons’ full attention in his (or her) skintight tank top, which you knew (usually) he’d lose before you finished your first $5 drink, thereby rendering you irrelevant and invisible. How 20th century! No wonder the so-called “dating” apps like Grindr changed the whole nature of gay hookups. Now you not only avoid the expense of drinks and coat checks but you can turn yourself into a sex god with the simple aid of a computer. With an initial investment of time –– to find your (or your dick’s) best angle, you can take a bunch of shots, you can manipulate the lighting, crop out your sagging belly, and come out

looking like the freshest piece of meat at the butcher’s counter. You may still get rejected, but –– and this is the key to the whole thing –– you’re not there to witness the rejection! It happens in some other guy’s apartment without you being aware of having even being swiped. That’s the real beauty of Grindr. Ah, but my misanthropic negativity is showing. Gay and lesbian bars were places of camaraderie! The good times rolled! The Economist is particularly nostalgic: “In America these bars popped up more and more after the Second World War, during which millions of people, many of whom were from small towns or suburbs, were posted in big cities such as New York and San Francisco. When the war ended many gay people wanted to stay together. This is partly how homosexual districts, such as the Castro in San Francisco and Greenwich Village in New York, developed. In these neighbourhoods gays and lesbians had their own restaurants, book shops, church groups, and newspapers.” The Economist continues: “Along with being places to hook up, the bars in these districts also let gay people try on new identities, says Jim Downs, a historian at Connecticut College who has written about the gay-liberation movement. Some men went to bars dressed as police officers or leather -clad motor bikers. Others preferred the ‘ballroom scene,’ in which they wore extravagant dresses and competed to throw the wittiest put-downs at each other. Lesbians could be ‘butch dykes’ or ‘femmes.’ Hairy, burly men called themselves ‘bears.’ Such subcultures still exist (‘for bears and their admirers,’ reads the slogan for XXL, a London nightclub).” Always with an eye to money, the Economist cites another problem facing gay and lesbian bars: skyrocketing rent: “In the rich world it is no longer raids that threaten gay bars; the biggest problem facing most is rent. These places are often in scruffier parts of cities. As cities become wealthier, and as pressure on space intensifies, they are squeezed out. In Brooklyn the Starlite Lounge, which had been open since the 1950s, faced a rent rise in 2010. The managers were

MEDIA CIRCUS, continued on p.15

January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

MEDIA CIRCUS, from p.14

forced to close despite a campaign to save it. Today the building is occupied by a local deli, the owner of which also says that his rent has become too steep. In London the Candy Bar, a lesbian venue, closed in 2014 after two decades of serving drinks to women in a dark, rather dingy space when its landlord increased the rent. In an ironic twist, the bar is now a lap-dancing club.” The Economist eventually gets around to Grindr: “Mobile-phone apps such as Grindr for men and Her for women have eliminated much of the need to lock eyes across a crowded room. Instead potential partners can be found while at home or in the lunchbreak at work by ‘swiping’ to find people nearby. Some 2m men use Grindr globally [!]. The app allows them to see and talk to other men who are online nearby, to either forge relationships or have casual sex. Other apps allow people to search for people in other countries, suddenly making the gay bar global. ‘The efficiency is unparalleled,’ boasts Robyn Exton, the founder of Her, which has 1.5m users.” So why is the collapse of gay bar culture A Good Thing in the eyes of the Economist? “Perhaps the biggest reason gay bars are disappearing is because of increased acceptance of homosexuality in the rich world. According to a study in September from Pew Research Centre, an American think-tank, 87 percent of those asked knew someone who was gay or a lesbian. One in five American adults say their views on homosexuality have changed over the past five years (most have become more accepting). Similarly in Britain, views on homosexuality have become markedly more tolerant. This means that many gay men and women, particularly youngsters, do not feel the need to congregate in one spot. In big cities such as London or New York they can display affection in many bars and pubs, while they frequently live in areas of cities that are more diverse.” So all is well! Gay bars are forced to close because their patrons are oh-so-accepted in and by the mainstream. Why surround yourself with your own community when GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

you can spend your free time with a crowd of delightful straight folks? Why go to Julius’ when you can go to happy hour at T.G.I. Friday’s instead? Personally, I love cocktails near shrill parents and their noisy brats while tacky Lite-FM-style music plays on the sound system.

“ In Brooklyn the Starlite Lounge, which had been open since the 1950s, faced a rent rise in 2010. The managers were forced to close despite a campaign to save it.” >"(;"84"3"(6*##%+,-.(67%*85(;"(,(2"#6%&,8(,&5(4&'4$,'"("?2"#4"&-"5=( The Economist takes a peculiar view of how gay bars help ameliorate the stigma of being gay. It starts off well: “While these places close down in the rich world, they remain as important as ever in the developing world. In Kampala, the capital of Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal, a gay club night takes place at a particular restaurant every Sunday evening. ‘We dress up, cross dress, dance, dance, dance,’ says Frank Mugisha, a gay-rights activist. ‘But you wouldn’t know about it unless you knew someone who goes,’ he adds.” Then the skies darken: “These places are facing many of the problems that gay bars in New York or London experienced four decades ago. In August the Ugandan police stormed a gay and transgender fashion show, beating the participants and locking them up in jail for a night. Similarly in Yaoundé in Cameroon, where homosexuality is also illegal, police officers surrounded Mistral Bar in October, holding the patrons inside for some time before arresting all of them.” Gee, this makes Grindr look benign. I’d take Grindr’s heartlessness over a stinking Yaoundé jail cell any day. Follow @EdSikov on Twitter and Facebook.

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To Advertise, Call GAYLE GREENBERG 718-260-4585 | gayle @ gaycitynews.com 15

DYKE ABROAD, from p.13

seems sorry. I’ve read more than a few posts by a rainbow of activists smugly dismissing 50 years of social progress to announce that with the election of DT we’re just uncovering America’s true face of bigotry, war-mongering, and unbridled capitalism. The implication is nothing’s ever changed, especially for social minorities. That the streets Zora Neale Hurston walked down a few years out from slavery are exactly the same as those of Claudia Rankine. My own life is no different than my grandmother’s who was born into a world where she couldn’t have her own credit card, file rape charges. Vote. Why are we so incapable of saying that things have changed, but not enough? Not for everyone? It’s like we believe having some kind of historical perspective is a betrayal of today’s pain. Fire must be fire whether you’re considering a candle or a burning house, the flam-

ing towers of 9/11 or the melting mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nobody suffers more than me. The incremental progress of a democracy is never real, only its failures. Love never beats out hate. It’s a problem because I don’t see how we can strategize effectively unless we face that DT is our backlash president. And that the reason we elected the whitest, straightest, most pussy-grabbingest mogul on earth was precisely because we’d had eight years of Obama, a ground-breaking bid by Hillary, and a decade of escalating progress for queers and a visible racial justice movement. Sure there were a few election missteps, and Russian interference, and yes, the white working class is struggling to find a way forward, but the biggest predictor of a vote in this election wasn’t income, but how much the individual hated women and blacks and queers. How can we imagine the future and seize the one we want, unless

TRANSGENDER HEALTH, from p.3

The religious institution plaintiffs, in effect, argue that the non-discrimination requirement would inevitably require them to perform procedures that violate their religious views. The state plaintiffs, meanwhile, argue the rule would require them to violate their own laws and regulations, such as banning abortions in state facilities or the use of state Medicaid funds for gender transition or abortions. O’Connor agreed with the religious institution plaintiffs that however the dispute over interpretation is resolved, there is a likelihood that their exercise of religion would be substantially burdened. In issuing a preliminary junction, O’Connor first considered the plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, and he found that Title IX does not on its face ban discrimination because of “gender identity” or “termination of pregnancy.” Much of his discussion involves the gender identity issue, and there he channels his analysis from the August Title IX injunction. His discussion of the abortion issue focuses on the failure of HHS to incorporate in its new regulation the religious and abortion exemptions in existing Title IX regulations. On gender identity, O’Connor’s bottom line is that “the meaning of sex in Title IX unambiguously refers to ‘the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth.’” Because there is no ambiguity, the judge was unwilling to accord HHS the deference typically due an agency in adopting regulations to carry out its statutory responsibilities.

we admit that it is new, in fact, for modern America to install actual, overt Nazis? To embrace an administration hostile to civil government itself, which aspires to pure autocracy with a soupçon of rabid nihilism that makes Heath Ledger’s Joker look positively sane. Everything follows from what comes before. Everything has roots, and unintended consequences. Perhaps some of them will even be good. Because the same brutes bashing Muslim women on the subway are harassing young Jewish girls and turning menorahs into swastikas, Muslims and Jews are now joining forces against bigotry. Maybe our big mistake wasn’t celebrating incremental progress, but shaping movements based on the belief that history is bent in an arc toward justice. We understand now that progress is not inevitable. Democracy is fragile. God is dead. If history resembles anything it is the mountain range of an EKG, bumping up and down. The only ques-

Relying, as well, on what he termed the “ordinary meaning” of sex discrimination, O’Connor also noted that as of the time Congress enacted the ACA in 2010, federal agencies had not yet begun to treat “gender identity” discrimination as covered by sex discrimination statutes. In a footnote, he rejected the government’s attempt to bolster its case by reference to the Price Waterhouse sex stereotyping precedent, pointing out that the ACA incorporated federal education law’s Title IX, not the Title VII employment nondiscrimination provisions. O’Connor also found that Congress, in incorporating Title IX’s nondiscrimination provisions, intended to include its religious exemption language. “Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, but exempts from this prohibition entities controlled by religious organizations when the proscription would be inconsistent with religious tenets,” O’Connor wrote. “Title IX also categorically exempts any application that would require a covered entity to provide abortion or abortion-related services… Therefore, a religious organization refusing to act inconsistent with its religious tenets on the basis of sex does not discriminate on the ground prohibited by Title IX.” O’Connor bolstered this point by invoking the Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling that gave the Hobby Lobby corporation the right to claim a religious exemption from the ACA’s requirement to provide employee health coverage for contraceptive and abortion services. Taking his cue from Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in that case, O’Connor pointed out

tions are: Is this downward dip the big one, or will it go back up in our lifetimes? Or even flatline entirely with one big boom? How can we shape it? Believing in an arc made us too cautious, subservient. Now maybe queers can quit pretending that if we prove ourselves worthy, sanitize our movement, emphasize love and marriage, dress up chastely in suits and sweater sets, transition undetectably to the appropriate gender, use the right words in the right order, that we’ll continue to collect our rights like Girl Scout merit badges. Now that we know things can turn around in an instant, we can refuse to cling to crumbs, become generous, open our arms, and our movement. Embrace each other. Why be careful when we can be free? Kelly Cogswell is the author of “Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger,” from the University of Minnesota Press.

that the government could offer to pay for transition and abortion services to be provided by those who did not have religious objections to them in order to avoid burdening a plaintiff’s religious rights. O’Connor also cited an HHS study showing that the medical community is not unanimous on the value and necessity of performing transition procedures, particularly on minors. That study, he found, undermined any argument that the government has a “compelling interest” that properly overrides the rights of health care providers with sincere religious objections to performing such procedures. Given his conclusion that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits, O’Connor found that they easily satisfied the other requirements for preliminary injunctive relief, noting in particular the risk that religious institution plaintiffs could suffer the loss of federal funding if the rule went into effect. Given the reach of the rule and the fact that some of the plaintiffs operate across the country, O’Connor concluded that a nationwide injunction “is appropriate.” A preliminary injunction stays in effect until the court issues a ruling on the merits, unless it is reversed on appeal. As of December 31, the Obama administration had barely three weeks left in office, to be succeeded by an administration much less likely to defend the HHS regulation. As a result, O’Connor’s ruling signals a major and probably long-term setback to efforts by transgender people to obtain nondiscriminatory health care, including coverage for medically-necessary transition procedures. January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

BOOKS

Face Forward and Forgetting Rabih Alameddine’s new novel explores modern culture’s refusal to remember BY GEORGE DE STEFANO

efore he became an acclaimed novelist, Rabih Alameddine studied engineering at the University of California, got a master’s degree in business, went back to school to study clinical psychology, and then had a successful career as a painter, with solo exhibitions in New York and London. He became a fulltime writer in 1998, with the publication of his first novel, “Koolaids.” Alameddine followed that book with a short story collection, “The Perv: Stories” (1999), “I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters” (2001), “The Hakawati” (2008), “An Unnecessary Woman” (a 2014 National Book Award finalist), and in October, “The Angel of History: A Novel.” Alameddine, 57, was born in Amman, Jordan, to Lebanese Druze parents, was raised in Beirut, and, before immigrating to the United States, studied in England and Kuwait. He’s drawn on his wide-ranging experiences for his novels: Osama al-Kharrat, in “The Hakawati,” leaves his family in Beirut to study engineering in Los Angeles; Mohammed, in “Koolaids,” is a gay Lebanese painter who exhibits his work abroad; and Jacob (born Ya’qub), the protagonist of “The Angel of History,” is a gay Arab immigrant living in San Francisco, Alameddine’s adopted city. The correspondences between Alameddine’s fiction and his life notwithstanding, his books are not merely autobiographical. They instead are richly imagined and superbly written works that dive headlong into our chaotic contemporary world and, through the enchantment of storytelling, give form and meaning to lives fragmented by violence, displacement, and disease. “Koolaids” portrays the impact of both AIDS and the Lebanese civil war on a group of families and friends in Beirut; in “The Angel of History,” the Yemeni-born Jacob, tormented by his memories of loved ones lost to AIDS and by the present-day war in his homeland, commits himself to a psychiatric ward in a San Francisco hospital. Alameddine’s novels combine realist narrative, epic tales, fantasy, and surrealism, with a radical political sensibility. As the Guardian noted in its review of “The Angel of History,” “At a time when many Western writers seem to be in retreat from saying anything that could be construed as political, Alameddine says it all, shamelessly, gloriously and… in the most stylish of forms.” During a recent interview, I spoke with Alameddine about his latest novel, his love for the German-Jewish Marxist literary critic Walter Benjamin, the “othering” of Arabs in Western societies, and contemporary gay life, among other matters. In “The Angel of History,” two archetypal figGayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

ures — Satan and Death — struggle to claim the anguished Jacob’s soul. The former represents memory and remembering; the latter, forgetting and oblivion. There’s no contest as to which is the more appealing figure. Satan is a lively, witty figure given to campy remarks whereas Death — Satan’s son — is gloomy, albeit compassionate (“Forgetting is good for the soul… Not just good but necessary”). Their philosophic duel constitutes the novel’s central dialectic. Why did Alameddine choose to personify remembering and forgetting through these two figures? “With Death, it was easy — in terms of mythology, you have to forget your life before you go to the underworld,” he explained. “Death is the one who gives you the cup [of forgetfulness]. Satan is the first rebel, the first to say ‘no.’ In the story in the Quran, God created the angels and they were happy. Then he created this thing — man— from clay, from dirty clay, and God asked the angels to bow down before him, so that it was no longer just bowing before God, you have to bow before man. And Satan said ‘no.’ And that’s it, who do we bow to, and who are we rebelling against. Satan becomes for me not just the angel of queers; he becomes the angel of adolescence, the angel of every revolution, of all those who say no. I started with this idea and then I fell in love with him. Yes, just say ‘no!’ “If you ask me what the book is about, it’s this tension between remembering and forgetting, not about AIDS. I used AIDS because that’s what I know. I’m much more interested in how we remember and how we forget than the details of AIDS. You can’t remember without forgetting and you can’t forget without remembering. So, it’s a dance between the two. The unfortunate thing for us these days is that we live in a culture that is really into forgetting. Everything is geared to us moving on and forgetting. In the book, I have Satan quote Gore Vidal about this country being the ‘United States of Amnesia.’ So, I think where we are right now is unhealthy, although I’m not exactly sure what would be the right balance.” The novel’s title comes from Walter Benjamin, whom Alameddine claims as a liter ary hero and inspiration. In a famous essay, Benjamin ruminates about a Paul Klee painting, “Angelus Novus,” which, Benjamin writes, “shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and

ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS

Rabih Alameddine’s sixth book, “The Angel of History: A Novel,” was published in October.

THE ANGEL OF HISTORY By Rabih Alameddine Atlantic Monthly Press $26; 304 pages

BENITO ORDONEZ/ RABIHALAMEDDINE.COM

Author Rabih Alameddine. ANGEL OF HISTORY, continued on p.32

THEATER

Courting Controversy

Rare revival of “indecent” play depicting a forbidden lesbian romance, in Yiddish BY DAVID KENNERLEY

ast spring, Paula Vogel’s “Indecent” at the Vineyard Theatre was received with such rapture that producers soon announced a transfer to Broadway — it’s now slated for the Cort Theatre starting in April. Not that the searing historical drama, chronicling the turbulent backstory of a controversial play from the early 20th century titled “God of Vengeance,” screams commercial hit. Originally written in Yiddish by Sholem Asch, “Got Fun Nekome” features Jewish prostitutes, a desecrated Torah, physical abuse of women, and the first-ever lesbian kiss on a Broadway stage. In 1923 these acts were deemed so egregious that the producers and entire cast of the Broadway version were arrested and charged with lewd behavior. Many Jews were irate that their people were being depicted as unsavory stereotypes. And now theater history geeks are in for a treat. The New Yiddish Rep is staging a rare revival of “God of Vengeance” in Yiddish (with English supertitles) at La MaMa, around the corner from the very theater where it premiered in 1907.

The incendiary plot revolves around Yekel (Shane Baker), a loutish, moody Jewish man who runs a brothel in the cellar of his house. To atone for his sins and raise his standing in the community, he commissions a Torah scroll to be written and placed in the bedroom of his virginal 17-year-old daughter, Rifkele (Shayna Schmidt). He wants nothing more than to keep Rifkele pure and marry her off to a respectable Jewish scholar. His schemes, however, quickly go awry. Does dusting off the century-old source material for “Indecent” — in a nearly dead tongue, no less — make for satisfying theater? Based on this modest, uneven production, the answer is both yes and no. On the plus side, this earnest staging powerfully articulates themes such as the hypocrisy of religion, the pressure to keep up appearances, the curse of inheriting sins from parents, the importance of following your heart, and the value of keeping the pure separate from the impure. “You want to talk business with me? All right, but downstairs,” Yekel says to a pimp at the brothel who has come uninvited to his home

VENGEANCE, continued on p.33

RONALD L. GLASSMAN

Shayna Schmidt and Melissa Weisz in Sholem Asch’s nearly century-old “God of Vengeance,” performed in Yiddish with English supertitles at La MaMa through January 22.

Shock and Awe NYTW deliver a masterpiece “Othello OTHELLO

CHAD BATKA

David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig in the New York Theater Workshop production of Shakespeare’s “Othello.”

BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE

he undercurrents of passion, menace, and virtually unrelieved tension that pulse through Sam Gold’s masterful staging of “Othello,” now at New York Theatre Workshop, make this one of the most exciting productions of this play I have seen –– and I’ve seen 11 over several decades. GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

Set in a contemporary military encampment, the theater has been turned into a rough-hewn plywood arena with the audience sitting on surprisingly comfortable bleachers looking down on the play from three sides. This design by Andrew Lieberman adds levels of palpable claustrophobia to the brewing tragedy as the play unfolds. Lighting designer Jane Cox has eschewed traditional theatrical

New York Theatre Workshop 79 E. 4th St., btwn. Bowery & Second Ave. Through Jan. 18 Tue.-Wed., Sun. at 7 p.m. Thu.-Sat. at 8 p.m.; Sat at 2 p.m. Regular $125 tickets sold out $25 lottery tickets daily at TodayTix app Three hrs., 10 mins., with intermission

techniques and relied on flashlights, LED panels, overhead fluorescents, and portable camping lights to create hard-edged, stark, and often-unflattering effects. The innovation and power of this stripped-down design alone would be reason enough to celebrate the creativity of this production. Fortunately, though, there is so much more. Director Gold starts by trusting the script; the careful read-

ing of the play, respectful of Shakespeare’s balancing of poetry and brutality, is extraordinary. There isn’t a moment that feels unexplored or ill-defined. The clarity and specificity of each of the characters propel the story with edge-of-the-seat urgency. The tragedy unfolds as Iago, passed over for a promotion by Othello, seeks revenge upon the Moor by convincing him that his wife, Desdemona, has been unfaithful to him with Othello’s chosen lieutenant, Cassio. Iago knows how to play each person in his game perfectly to achieve his selfish ends, only to betray them as he moves to his next objective. (Any similarities to a 2016 president-elect in a play written in 1603 are coincidental but speak to the consistency throughout time of the powerful human lust to accumulate power.)

OTHELLO, continued on p.32

THEATER

On London Stage, Love Trumps Hate –– Mostly Amidst mayhem from Mary and Elizabeth, Salieri, hope comes from survivors of longest odds

SARAH LEE

Darcey Brown, Janet Etuk, and Bobby Stallwood in Alexander Zeldin’s “Love.”

BY ANDY HUMM hris Hedges, the reporter who is trying to restore Western civilization’s conscience, just wrote that in the wake of the election debacle, “We will endure by holding fast to our integrity, by building community, and by spawning new institutions in the midst of the wreckage.” In this bleakest of winters, that sobering truth come to dramatic life at the National Theatre’s Dorfman in the unlikeliest of places — a “home” not even as cozy as Bob Cratchit’s on a bad day.

the Islamic young man who drifts in and out, the refugee woman who mostly keeps to herself. But they each have their dignity –– and each other –– in a situation beyond the imagining of most of us. Their mere survival is profoundly moving. None of the performances strikes false notes that would distract from the reality that Zeldin hopes we will face. A wonderful gift for Christmas when we are supposed to be recalling a homeless family stuck in a stable for the birth of their child and as the US heads for the biggest downward spiral for the poor since the Depression.

Alexander Zeldin’s “Love” (to

“Much Ado About Nothing”

Feb. 11) plops us in a hostile, fluorescent-lit hostel for disparate displaced families sharing one bathroom as they await judgments from unforgiving poverty bureaucracies as to whether they will ever be allowed to leave this limbo for real homes. The house lights are up the whole hour and three quarters with no intermission, making it harder to look away and easier to see the reactions of the well-dressed, wellfed witnesses to their plights. Zeldin, who also directs, doesn’t make it easy for us. There is little in the way of theatrical heightening as he just lets the days of the unlucky unfold. There is no false hope for the old, incontinent white woman cared for by her obese son, the interracial couple with two young kids “living” in one room,

at the Haymarket is subtitled by the Royal Shakespeare Company “Love’s Labour’s Won” (in reper tory with “Love’s Labour’s Lost” to Mar. 18), and it does make you believe love can overcome. A lot. It is a “comedy” where the threat of an honor killing hangs over the proceedings, but the splendid company makes it seem effortless –– swinging from slapstick to romance to dark tragedy. Christopher Luscombe sets his “Ado” after World War I and “Downton Abbey” will come to mind, but he proves the tale timeless. Edward Bennett and Lisa Dillon are perfect as an evenly matched Benedick and Beatrice. (Bennett does something with a Christmas tree I’ve never seen done before.) And Steven Pacey is an especially fine

MARC BRENNER

Adam Gillen and Lucian Msamati in Michael Longhurst’s revival of Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus.

Leonato morphing from the bland, proud dad of lovely Hero to being ready to dispatch her in a rage from the land of the living. But all beliefs in love and talent overcoming baser qualities are shattered in the temple of the National’s Olivier in Michael Longhurst’s provocative revival of Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” or “Salieri, your arms too short to box with God.” I normally would not comment on “nontraditional” casting, but Salieri is played by Lucian Msamati, Emperor Joseph II’s lackluster court composer –– not just a black man but one wearing a black wig amidst a sea of white ones as he is devastated by the genius of Mozart (Adam Gillen, who captures both his divine spark and infantile tem-

LONDON, continued on p.23

HUGO GLENDINNING

Ashley Shaw in Sir Matthew Bourne’s new “The Red Shoes.”

January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

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STEVE TANNER

Anna Francolini as Captain Hook â&#x20AC;&#x201C;â&#x20AC;&#x201C; sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also Mrs. Darling â&#x20AC;&#x201C;â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in Sally Cooksonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Peter Pan.â&#x20AC;?

LONDON, from p.22

perament in an eye-popping turn) and seeks to destroy him in a rage at his God for speaking through this vulgar manchild and not him. Salieri asks, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The death of Mozart: Did I do it?â&#x20AC;? with echoes of O.J., who murderously rebelled against the white court that promoted him as a black man to look up to. This epic production â&#x20AC;&#x201C;â&#x20AC;&#x201C; woven with sublime music and a sprinkling of thought-provoking anachronisms â&#x20AC;&#x201C;â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is a keen reimagining of the 1979 play most known for the 1984 Milos Forman movie. As a stage work once more, we are riveted by the contemplation of the mysteries of Salieriâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s epic envy and Mozartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unfathomable gifts. It put me in mind of the confounding election we just endured where the motivation of many voters seemed to be: if I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have my status back, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be happier if those who have achieved some lose it â&#x20AC;&#x201C;â&#x20AC;&#x201C; especially those like gays and liberated women who offend the God I have devoted my life to worshiping and people of color who â&#x20AC;&#x153;donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know their place.â&#x20AC;? If you cannot get to the Olivier by Feb. 2, the Nationalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Aamdeusâ&#x20AC;? will play in cinemas worldwide from then on via NT Live. Â Another tale of destructive envy is brought to lushly romantic life in

Sir Matthew Bourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Red Shoesâ&#x20AC;? at Sadlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Wells (to Jan. 29), based on Hans Christian Andersenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fairy tale and the classic Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger 1948 film. GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

As the enjoyment of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Amadeusâ&#x20AC;? is enhanced by Mozartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s music, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Red Shoesâ&#x20AC;? enchants us with excerpts from stirring scores by Bernard Hermann from films such as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Citizen Kaneâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fahrenheit 451â&#x20AC;? arranged by Terry Davies and Bourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thrilling choreography that propels this backstage story to its tragic conclusion â&#x20AC;&#x201D; lightened by high and low ballet sequences and unobtrusively integrated heterosexual and homosexual pairings. Kudos to the principal dancers, rotated among the three leads. I saw Ashley Shaw as Victoria Page, Chris Ternfield as Boris Lermontov, and Dominic North as Julian Craster. And while this â&#x20AC;&#x153;Amadeusâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Red Shoesâ&#x20AC;? were surely dreamed up before the Trump ascendancy, the bad guys in both luxuriate in overly gilt rooms. Sally Cookson and her energetic Companies troupe, who worked a theatrical miracle with â&#x20AC;&#x153;Jane Eyreâ&#x20AC;? last season, are back with a new version â&#x20AC;&#x153;Peter Panâ&#x20AC;? also at the Olivier (to Feb. 4). Madeleine Worrall, who shone as Jane, is a nicely motherly Wendy. There is merit in making Paul Hiltonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Peter an aging rock star (many of whom are lost boys) and keeping us off balance by turning Anna Francoliniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mrs. Darling into Captain Hook. But using adult actors to play children of all ages works less well here â&#x20AC;&#x201C;â&#x20AC;&#x201C; despite calling to mind the massive rebellion against growing up manifest in the regressive votes

LONDON, continued on p.31

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Feeling Low? Watch This! Doc kings Bailey and Barbato are back, with surprisingly sober but very funny project BY DAVID NOH

t’s a new year, we have a new (shudder) president, and people are more depressed than ever, some even feeling suicidal. What was once literally regarded as the lunatic fringe of society has become the new normal, with everyone from six-yearolds to seniors feeling confused, or blue and dosing themselves away on meds. There is someone who is taking the issue of deep depression on directly –– British performer Jonny Donahoe, who came to New York recently with his one man show “Every Brilliant Thing.” In it, he deals with mental and psychological challenges, especially as they related to his mother, who committed suicide. Far from being a dramatic downer, however, the show was frequently hilarious while trenchant as well as amazingly gentle and humane. The use of direct audience participation, with Donahoe skillfully maneuvering New Yorkers into playing various characters in his life, including himself, cleverly fueled the production, which happily turned out to actually be that most dreaded of words –– healing. Handling the very skillful film translation of the play was a duo, whose work, particularly in the documentary field and on TV, will be familiar to many of you, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, the gay founders of their estimable production company, World of Wonder. “We’d done a lot of projects for HBO over the years, and they said we should check this show out and it was amazing, “ Bailey explained. “The subject matter is maybe something you don’t think you want to see, but the way it’s handled is so amazing. I have a total fear of audience participation, but this isn’t like that at all. Jonny Donahoe makes it seem so effortlessly easy and you realize that it is a group experience, which is a great way to explore depression. Because it’s something everybody can relate to, whether they’ve experienced it themselves or know someone who’s

WORLDOFWONDER.NET

Jonny Donahoe in “Every Brilliant Thing.”

suffering from it. This is an original, fresh take on a subject that doesn’t get enough attention, and we feel that it should.” The film made its HBO debut on December 26, and Bailey said, “This is a rough time for everybody, what with politics, the recent election, and the holidays combined, and I think that it’s great that HBO is showing it at this particular time. It’s not the usual holiday, ‘Jingle Bells’ thing, but something that is funny and life-affirming, as well. " Barbato added, “Jonny Donahoe is a UK comedian and actor, very well loved, and he’s been touring this show for some time now. The playwright is Duncan Macmillan and he has a history of writing some incredibly moving plays in the UK, where both of them are very celebrated artists. You will definitely be seeing more of Jonny here in the States. “We filmed three different performances of the play and then edited them together. We were so taken by the experience as filmmakers. Our job was to disappear in the translation of that theatrical experience. We wanted to make our screen adaptation as authentic as possible. One of the reasons it’s successful, with the audience connecting so deeply to it, is the way the theatrical experience of it was conceived. We filmed it at the Barrow Street Theatre in the West Village. “Our brilliant editor was a guy named Jason Blum, who did a lot

of ‘Drag Race’; we do a lot of work in-house. The goal in filming was to disappear and not be present. We had five or six cameras hidden and we really tried not to interfere with the energy and authenticity of the performance. “We saw it for the first time at the NY Doc Fest, and it went really well. We were in fact surprised that people were so very much engaged.” I told Bailey and Barbato that they are like the stealth weapon of the entertainment business, putting out fascinating film projects over nearly three decades now, everything from docs on Tammy Faye Baker (their film debut), Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, and, most recently, Robert Mapplethorpe, to their debut feature, “Party Monster,” with Macaulay Culkin playing notorious club kid murderer, Michael Alig, to producing TV’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Barbato was gracious in response: “Very kind of you. I think we just manage to survive. We have no choice but to produce and keep making stuff, especially now. There’s an actual imperative now to make stuff, and with us, it’s always been outside stuff. We like to focus on individuals who do not follow society’s view of what people should be. Our work is always fascinating to us for that reason –– all those celebrities out there, and there’s not a bore among them. “We’re inspired by the things we all have in common, rather than

differences we may have, and certain ideas that others perceive as being outside the mainstream. Those outside people are our inside, that’s who we are and continue to be, and ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ is an extension of all those ideas and that’s why it resonates with us. It shows how depression is really for everyone, rather than something that only affects a few.” Bailey and Barbato, although no longer life partners, have been working together for the better part of 30 years. “We met at NYU film school,” Bailey said, “at the beginning of mankind [laughs]. It was the end of the 1980s, an exciting time. Documentaries have always drawn us because we really find that truth is stranger than fiction, never more than now.” I praised the filmmakers for their early series “Hollywood Fashion Machine,” which although not perfect, was a groundbreaking series focused on the great designers who worked in that most overlooked of movie departments, costuming (Adrian, Orry-Kelly, Travis Banton, Jean Louis, Edith Head, among them). Barbato responded, “I wish we were still doing it. That was so much fun.” The two were also ahead of their time in their attention to the transgender and gender-nonconforming community, at a time when it was commonly viewed as freakish, if anything. “RuPaul was a very early inspiration and we worked with him for a long time,” Bailey said. “He’s always been a star but it was just a question of the rest of the world catching up. Working on ‘Drag Race’ is like celebrating Christmas every day. It’s a joy and so are the over 100 drag queens who have appeared on it. Each one of them is a star in their own right. We feel good about it. It’s been a long ride but I feel that show goes from strength to strength, and finds a broader audience every year. “We also just did a film for

IN THE NOH, continued on p.35

January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

Debbie Reynolds Kicked Ass

REMEMBRANCE

Veteran star reunited in death with daughter Carrie Fisher BY DAVID NOH

nd now, both Carrie Fisher, 60, and her equally movie-starry mother, Debbie Reynolds, 84, have truly gone into legend, the latter heartbreakingly following her daughter’s untimely death one day later. The facile term “icon” has been tossed around a lot lately regarding them, but it is certainly apropos. The trademark movie characters played by Reynolds and Fisher, Tammy and Princess Leia, respectively, were wholly representative emblems of their eras, the 1950s and the 1970s, with Tammy symbolizing youthful innocence and the homespun country values of a Norman Rockwell/ Eisenhower era, while Leia was bursting with the forthrightness, feverish curiosity, and joyous independence of the post-’60s feminist movement. Reynolds spoke more directly to this writer, because I was too grown up by the time the first “Star Wars” was released, in 1977, to have Leia really rock my world, as she did scores of younger kids. (Actually, I was far more struck by her searing film debut, two years earlier, in “Shampoo,” in which she definitively played a complex Beverly Hills brat, who, although she sleeps with her despised mother’s hairstylist/ roué lover, adamantly recoils from any other similarity between her and her hated parent.) No, Debbie was the one who affected me, especially in her epic musical “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” which I saw at the Waikiki Theater (and now cannot really watch as an adult), which made her my favorite movie star as a kid, even more than erstwhile beloveds like Doris Day in “Jumbo,” Natalie Wood in “Gypsy,” or Ann-Margret in “Viva Las Vegas.” In this film about that wealthy Titanic survivor, Reynolds’ hoydenish tomboy hillbilly spunk –– which transforms into a Gibson Girl elegance in a dazzling Morton Haack red befeathered ball gown once Molly strikes it oil-rich in Denver –– really caught my childish imagination. “The Singing Nun” followed that, with the ubiquitous strains of GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

MGM

FACEBOOK.COM

Debbie Reynolds in the 1964 MGM film, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”

Debbie Reynolds with her daughter, Carrie Fisher.

the folk song “Dominique,” inescapable by 1966, and Reynolds was a frequent presence on TV, always pretty, glamorous, and animated, like a shiny new toy. It was only later that I became aware of her more important work: as a triple threat 19-year-old ingénue in that greatest of movie musicals, “Singin’ in the Rain,” and as a very sympathetic and realistic Bronx bride-to-be trying desperately to please her wedding-crazed mother (Bette Davis) in Paddy Chayefsky’s “The Catered Affair,” her best-acted role. When I moved to Los Angeles to attend cinema school at the University of Southern California, I, among a street throng of movie mad fans, caught a glimpse of her on the starry, starry premiere night of “That’s Entertainment,” for which MGM had rounded up seemingly every surviving star from its glory days. I also became aware of her personal passion –– the collecting and preservation of costumes from Hollywood’s golden era, the 1920s1960, engendered by the 1970 mass auction of all of its collected studio memorabilia by the most titanic of studios and Reynolds’ home base, MGM. (I ached to go, but was too young; as a birthday gift that year, however, my mother allowed me to choose one costume

to engage her about her rumored lover, Agnes Moorehead (Reynolds had threatened to sue Eddie Fisher for writing about them, and the two ladies were featured in maybe the most salacious gossip I ever heard when I lived in LA.) But it was no problem at all –– Debbie sang her praises and their closeness: “We were always over at each other’s house!” And she really warmed up when I asked her about an obsession of mine –– the redoubtably eccentric character actress Martita Hunt. I said, “No one’s probably mentioned her to you for 50 years,” and, without a pause, she went instantly British: “Oh, deah, deah Martita! So veddy veddy British! And so veddy veddy drunk!” And, when it came to her own personal Brangelina, i.e., the huge scandal involving Elizabeth Taylor and Reynolds’ first husband, Eddie Fisher, who dumped Debbie for her, this late ‘50s Jennifer Aniston flapped her tongue like we were family, all about how time wounds all heels, with her and Elizabeth still on the phone all the time together, joking about Fisher. Let’s face it, that scandal belonged to the world, like (Saint) Ingrid Bergman’s bastards, and she knew it, and kind of reveled in it.

from a catalogue an enterprising antique dealer had sent me of items he had purchased at the auction. I chose an Adrian suit worn by Vivien Leigh in “Waterloo Bridge,” not Judy Garland’s red velvet party gown from “Meet Me in St. Louis.” I’ve been kicking myself about that one ever since.) The biggest heartbreak of Reynolds’ life was her inability, over a period of decades, to raise the proper funds and political support to create a Hollywood museum of film, where her precious artifacts –– which ranged from the ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” to her real life romantic rival Elizabeth Taylor’s gold Irene Sharaff “Cleopatra” get-up –– could be properly displayed. The jaw-droppingly huge and comprehensive Reynolds collection was eventually auctioned off a few years ago, when she finally threw in the towel, and all those special treasures went the way of the four winds. When Reynolds was scheduled to perform here at Lehman College about 10 years ago, I got to interview her by phone. I was originally promised 15 minutes max with her to start with, but she liked me and we stretched it to an hour and could easily have gone longer. I had heard rumors of her bisexuality since USC, and I naughtily tried

REYNOLDS, continued on p.30

TODD ROSENBERG

Clementine Margaine and Ferruccio Furlanetto in the Lyric Opera of Chicago production of Massenet’s “Don Quichotte.”

Road Shows W

ashington National Opera had two aces in the hole for its staging of “La fille du régiment,” heard November 18 –– redeeming what was otherwise problematic. The production was by a “director and choreographer” — always a red flag in my experience if you’re not dealing with an opera-ballet –– Robert Longbottom. So the continual motion and coy posing and flailing soldiers with identical gestures did not surprise –– they just disappointed. When will companies learn that Donizetti’s opera comique is a comedy of sentiment, not an excuse for cheap shenanigans and frippery? Visually, this performance only exceeded that provincial level in James Noone’s genuinely elegant Act Two set. Kevin Burdette (Sulpice) –– no bel canto singer, to put it mildly –– remains a gifted physical comedian willing to do anything to steal focus. Deborah Nansteel, a good mezzo whose career WNO has wisely advanced, had neither the comedic chops nor the command of French to effectively play the Marquise. Christopher Allen conducted decently, but the choral ensemble and string tone were not what they should have been at the run’s sixth show. None of this particularly mattered because the two stars, Lisette Oropesa (Marie) and Lawrence Brownlee (Tonio), offered world-class bel canto performances that were utterly delightful. (We briefly heard a third outstanding voice in Hunter Enoch’s Corporal.) Brownlee had sung

The Chicago Symphony’s beautiful home

his part — tackling with equal élan the famous nine-high-C first aria and the line-centered second one, with C sharp thrown in — at the Met in 2011-12. If anything he was even more charming and confident in enacting it here. Oropesa proved an ideal Marie in wedding excellent technique –– trills, staccato, and runs for days — to unforced charm and excellent Gallic style. Though funny, she and Brownlee didn’t mug or ironize their way through their roles but played them for emotional truth: just what the piece needs, and the audience loved them both. Neither of these great, popular American singers appears at the Met this season –– which I find shameful.

hosted an all-Handel evening December 2 with specialist Nicholas Kraemer leading small but choice instrumental forces and — in that context — the fine but perhaps too massive CSO Chorus. The opening Coronation Anthem “Zadok the Priest,” a piece that revs from zero to 60 in 90 seconds, impressed with dynamic contrast and the excellence of the trumpeters. Choral ensemble was crackerjack in runs, less so on sustained notes. The terrific Boston-based baroque soprano Amanda Forsythe — whom insular New York audiences have yet to “discover” — proved a terrific soloist in the early Psalm setting “Laudate pueri Dominum” and the motet “Silete venti.” Intelligently projecting a springwater -clear instrument a shade small for this venue, Forsythe showed remarkable stylistic and technical mastery over her material — most memorably in the motet’s second aria’s notoriously testing “B” section, taken at top speed by Kraemer. Her singing –– and the wonderful oboes –– delighted the crowd.

Two nights later, DC operagoers heard a less

Lyric Opera of Chicago mounted San Diego’s

mainstream French score, Massenet’s “Hérodiade,” at Washington Concert Opera, held at Lisner Auditorium. It’s the original “highlights” opera, with several stirring arias and ensembles linked by familiar generic musical gestures –– some creditable, some claptrap. It was good to hear it once, in Antony Walker’s generally strong reading. Here, too, however, the chorus lacked precision, though the many instrumental solos were well taken. Replacing Michaela Martens, rising dramatic mezzo Dana Beth Miller summoned up some diva power in the title role, perhaps pushing too hard at register extremes to make an impression (I flashed on Nell Rankin). Given the circumstances, Miller made a strong showing. Two internationally rising artists reinforced their

fine, traditional yet thoughtful staging by Matthew Ozawa of Massenet’s 1910 “Don Quichotte,” a fine vehicle for a mature bass star who can act and inflect French words. LOC had that many times over in Ferruccio Furlanetto, who gave a splendid, moving and nuanced performance. Massenet wrote the part for the iconic Feodor Chaliapin, a flamboyant actor, but he much preferred the subtle, word-based Vanni Marcoux. The singer of Quichotte has to project almost a Messianic quality of goodness and self-belief, and dynamic variety abounds. Furlanetto found the right tone and stance. New York deserves to see him in this role (as well as in Chaliapin’s careerdefining part, Boris Godunov). Ozawa’s colorful

Operatic riches in Washington and Chicago BY DAVID SHENGOLD

star presence and vocal gifts. Joyce El-Khoury (Salome) demonstrated excellent sung French and real vocal acumen. Her still-growing voice has some uneven and overdarkened places, but she manages to avoid accidents through an oftapplied diminuendo. Michael Fabiano’s Jean showed consistently beautiful tone and welcome dynamic variety; a friendly crowd received the tenor’s impassioned showing worshipfully. To me, there’s room for improvement in terms of French style, including not “taking vacations” on top fortes. Ricardo Rivera — compensating for lack of power by constant arm gestures — wasn’t in the same league interpretively or vocally as Herode, but the two subleads, bass Wei Wu (the astrologer Phanuel) and baritone Aleksey Bogdanov (the Roman leader Vitellius), really stood out for vocal size and quality. A fun evening. WCO’s next outing is Beethoven’s “Leonore” (March 5) with Marjorie Owens, Simon O’Neill, and Alan Held.

ROAD SHOWS, continued on p.28

January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

OPERA

An Alan Turing Fantasia

New opera multiply imagines Britain’s groundbreaking, codebreaking computer genius BY DAVID SHENGOLD

ay operatic history may be made January 12 at Manhattan’s Merkin Hall, at the world premiere –– in concert –– of “The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing.” This historical fantasia, cuttingedge composer Justine F. Chen’s first full-length opera, enlists experienced playwright David Simpatico’s libretto to create speculative versions of the renowned IT scientist’s triumph, struggle, and still mysterious 1954 death after being arrested under Britain’s notorious “gross indecency” act that had also destroyed Oscar Wilde. Many know versions of Turing’s story from 2014’s “The Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch — which all but eliminated actual homosex from Turing’s activities (Simpatico tactfully praised the sets and costumes) –– or 1996’s “Breaking the Code” star-

ring Derek Jacobi. Best of the lot — though its main circulation was at LGBT film festivals — is Patrick Sammon’s 2011 “Codebreaker,” a talking heads documentary with dramatic reconstructions. Director Lawrence Edelson founded American Lyric Theater in 2005. Through fellowships, workshops, and development processes that yearly pair four librettists with four composers, ALT has developed a number of one-act and fulllength pieces. One recent success was “J.F.K.” with music by David T. Little to Royce Vavrek’s words, launched at Fort Worth this past June. Another definitively queerthemed work ALT developed was Jeffrey Dennis Smith’s 2015 oneact vehicle for character tenor extraordinaire Keith Jameson, “Why is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me?: A Love Story”. The Turing project was commissioned in 2012, when Simpatico and Chen participated in

ALT’s workshop and got along like a house afire. An actor friend had long before asked Simpatico to write a one-man Turing show, yielding the idea to make his story, full of achievement and tragedy, an opera. “It was a great experience to investigate the intensity of per sonal and public dynamics in his story,” Simpatico said. “I look at him as a Promethean character: a gay man born in 1912 who created the cyberworld, saved the Allies in World War II, and yet was tossed aside due to his sexuality.” As a writer new to opera, Simpatico praised “brilliant” dramaturg Cori Ellison. The “higher drama” of Turing’s life amazed Juilliard-trained Chen, who further noted how attached contemporary composers are to the computers his innovations rendered possible. She noted two points of departure for the score’s

AMERICAN LYRIC THEATER

Composer Justine F. Chen.

AMERICAN LYRIC THEATER

TURING, continued on p.28

Librettist David Simpatico.

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TAKE A BREAK FROM THE EXPECTED.

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GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

OPERA

Home Games Hei-Kyung Hong, Piotr Beczala in Met’s “Bohème”; “La clemenza di Tito” at Manhattan School BY DAVID SHENGOLD

he Met production of “La bohème” dates from 1981; my database tells me I had seen it 15 times before going again December 8. Franco Zeffirelli’s behemoth concept of Act II –– an audience “set applause” machine rendering the principals all but invisible –– is usually balanced by the wintry beauty of Act Three. On this occasion the lighting was off and one could not see behind the rear scrim to the Pissarro-like angled road up and down which several figures enter and depart. Revival director J. Knighten Smit kept the bohemians’ “hijinks” from being cringeworthy, though Act Four’s dancing riffs fell pretty flat. Marco Armiliato, whose name used to guarantee a certain degree of base-line mastery in the pit, seems sadly to have slipped into dulled routine. Those performers who made an impact did so almost despite him. The evening’s chief interest was the fine Mimi of Hei-Kyung Hong, now 32 years into a Met career marked by superior vocalism and quiet musical artistry. Looking slim and lovely, Hong offered beautifully phrased lyric singing –– with somewhat less body on bottom notes than before, but true and floating on high. A class act, as ever. At the intermission, general manager Peter Gelb honored her devoted service with a costume sketch for the “Figaro” Countess, joined to a photo of her wearing it. Piotr Beczala, one of the world’s great Rodol-

TURING, from p.27

admixture of “period” sound: Turing’s lifelong obsession with “Snow White” yielded an early Disney influence; plus, the fact that the codebreaking team at “Hut 8” felt guilty about having such a “fun” war suggested the Andrews Sisters. In a thematic link to randomness, she and Simpatico decided to offer four distinctly different versions of the end of Turing’s life. Lidiya Yankovskaya conducts a cast of fine young American singers: baritone Jonathan Michie as Turing, with soprano Keely Futterer, mezzo Elise Quagliata, tenors Javier Abreu and Andrew Bidlack, and bass-baritones Joseph Beutel and Thomas Shivone. Beyond the important gay history

fos, proved in uneven form: stirring at best but with odd lapses in vocal production and amount of tonal juice. He did partner Hong considerately, except maybe for taking the unwritten high C after they exited in Act One. Sadly, the Musetta/ Marcello pairing was the weakest I’ve ever heard at the Met, a far cry from the phenomenal Anna Netrebko/ Peter Mattei pairing offered in 2004. One shouldn’t write off any soprano on the basis of Musetta, but nothing Brigitta Kele did –– in any of the different kinds of singing or dramatic Puccini gave her –– bespoke any distinction. Massimo Cavalletti looked nice as Marcello but his baritone lacked steadiness and quality. Patrick Carfizzi surely outsings most of the world’s Schaunards; perhaps bored, he should guard against putting too many squeaks and guffaws into the mix. Ryan Speedo Green was a solid, affable Colline until his Coat Song, which he delivered with more precise phrasing and deeper feeling. Paul Plishka, who joined the company in 1967, came welcomely out of retirement to do — well — the two comic turns, Benoit and Alcindoro.

Manhattan School of Music presented Mozart’s “La clemenza di Tito” with two alternating casts December 8-11. Dona Vaughn’s production was a model of presenting a tricky historical opera seria simply but with color and flow. Erhard Rom’s faux marble-and-pillars set and Tracy Dorman’s handsome costumes suggested a stately, powerful Rome divided only by the per-

THE LIFE AND DEATH(S) OF ALAN TURING Merkin Concert Hall Kaufman Music Center 129 W. 67th St. Jan. 12 at 7:30 p.m. $25-$125 altnyc.org/the-life-and-deathsof-alan-turing angle, Edelson argued, the whole world should know about Turing. “I am amazed –– every day –– by how far what he created impacts everything we do –– every day,” Edelson said. David Shengold (shengold@yahoo. com) writes about opera for many venues.

CORY WEAVER/ METROPOLITAN OPERA

Hei-Kyung Hong, who was honored at the December 8 intermission, in Puccini’s La bohème.”

sonal passions unleashed in the libretto’s plot. Follow spots sometimes flickered, but otherwise Tyler Micoleau’s lighting provided atmosphere for chaos and triumph alike. George Manahan obtained fine — if sometimes testingly swift –– results from the orchestra, especially the crucial clarinets and oboes, and Miriam Charney’s chorus handled itself commendably. Everyone in both casts showed some talent, even if different levels of achievement and suitability for Mozart opera seria were perforce on exhibit. Saturday’s cast, in general higher profile dramatically, coalesced around the extraordinarily adroit, layered characterization of Vitellia by Abigail Shapiro; Sunday’s performance revolved around Marie-Gabrielle Arco’s long-suf-

HOME GAMES, continued on p.35

ROAD SHOWS, from p.26

staging, framed by devices underlining the role of imagination in the central character’s story, would serve that purpose just fine. So would engaging LOC’s other two principals, Clementine Margaine’s Dulcinée and Nicola Alaimo, physically and vocally a born Sancho Panza. Indeed the French mezzo made more of her part than I have seen done before, with credible melancholy alternating with the courtesan’s spirited self-mocking. She wields chest tones with aplomb. Margaine comes to the Met as Carmen February 3-18 and should be worth catching as that somewhat kindred spirit. One of Massenet’s clever devices in this score is to have Dulcinée’s admirers — probably all cast-off lovers — function as a quartet (soprano, mezzo, tenor, tenor). The company’s Young Artists did their bits well, with Diana Newman’s luminous soprano as the chief ear-catcher. Bradley Smoak’s Bandit Chief had taken the trouble to polish his spoken French. Andrew Davis led a generous, lively performance; those onstage seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as the audience. David Shengold (shengold@yahoo.com) writes about opera for many venues. January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

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GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

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FILM

Discovering Sanctity A family built from the longings of a fatherless teenage boy BY STEVE ERICKSON

xpatriates can act strange, particularly if they didn’t leave their home country out of necessity but because they were disgusted by its culture. Eugène Green, an American director who lives and works in France, is a case in point. He now refers to the US as “la barbarie,” and don’t get him started on the subject of Quentin Tarantino films. In the ultimate un-American gesture, he cast himself as an Iraqi refugee in his previous film, “La Sapienza.” Green is attracted to architecture and baroque music –– two pieces of which are heard in his latest film, “Son of Joseph.” In a lot of ways, he’s become more archetypally French –– drawn to classical music and ‘60s art films –– than young French people. You can exit his films without hearing a note of pop music or seeing the diverse France that’s given birth to a farright backlash. But I don’t think that’s worth criticizing: it’s obvious that Green’s films are extremely subjective fantasies. He’s not filming the real Paris, but one that exists only in his head. It probably existed there long before he moved to Paris. Vincent (Victor Ezenfis) is a bored teenager who lives with his single mother, Marie (Natacha Régnier). While they don’t spend all their time fighting, their relationship seems difficult. He resents the fact that he grew up fatherless; she resents the fact that Vincent’s biological father asked her to abort him and then abandoned her when she said no. Vincent gets involved

REYNOLDS, from p.25

Reynolds managed to survive that brouhaha, as well as her engagement at Lehman, sadly halffilled and constantly interrupted by Westchester alter kockerish women screaming things mid-act like, “My late husband Morris was your drummer in Vegas!” Which she then blithely incorporated into her act, “Morris” becoming a regu-

KINO LORBER

Victor Ezenfis, Natacha Régnier, and Fabrizio Rongione in Eugène Green’s “Son of Joseph.”

in the literary world, attending a party held by publisher Oscar (Mathieu Amalric, looking older than he ever has before). Oscar’s brother Joseph (Fabrizio Rongione) shows up and bickers with his sibling, but he impresses Vincent, who befriends Joseph. Soon, Joseph begins spending time with Marie, and the Old Testament references strewn throughout the film come around to the New Testament. Green’s direction of actors draws heavily on Robert Bresson, who referred to his performers as “models” and tried to use their gestures rather than the qualities typically seen as expressive acting. At the beginning of “Son of Joseph,” opera plays over a scene showing the legs of people walking down a staircase. At various points in this film, Green fragments his actors’ bodies the way Bresson did, often leaving their heads out of the frame to concen-

trate on their hands and legs. However, he departs from his master in other ways. His “direction” of natural settings is closer to the realism of Éric Rohmer. He has a true sensitivity to color, evident in a scene where Vincent, Marie, and Joseph all wear blue clothes against the backdrop of a sky and sea roughly the same shade. At first, Green’s sense of whimsy feels rather curdled, and his sense

lar punch line (“D’you think Morris woulda liked that song?”), afterwards consenting to sign a truckload of ancient albums and posters brought by her special fans in the audience. Performance-wise, Reynolds’ voice, by that point, was a rather frayed remnant, but, when impersonating Streisand, while wearing a witch’s nose, it was uncanny how much she sounded like her.

Yes, Reynolds survived all of this, and more: three lousy husbands (the last two, who, if not cheating on her, were stealing from her); bankruptcies; enormous debt (see: the husbands), which she worked her butt off to pay off; and a pair of particularly challenging kids, Carrie and Todd, by Fisher. What Debbie Reynolds could not survive was one of them going before her.

SON OF JOSEPH Directed by Eugène Green Kino Lorber In French with English subtitles Opens Jan. 13 Film Society of Lincoln Center Elinor Bunin Munroe Theater 144 W. 65th St. filmlinc.org

of humor misses the mark more often than not. His film is divided into sections, based on Bible passages. The first one, “The Sacrifice of Abraham,” opens with two men trying to kill a rat. While they don’t succeed –– and the end credits let us know that no animals were harmed in the making of “Son of Joseph” –– it opens the film up on a decidedly pissy note. Green’s satire of the publishing world continues in this fashion, with a ditzy reporter who wants to interview Proust at a party thrown by Oscar and idiotic gossip about “catamites.” Fabrizio Rongione gives the film’s best performance –– better than Amalric, who stays hidden behind stubble and his character’s perpetual hangover –– and plays its most appealing character. Green’s tone is uneven, but it gradually grows kinder as he (metaphorically) races through the Bible toward the birth of Jesus. While Bresson seems to have begun as a devout Catholic and ended up an atheist, it’s not uncommon for French filmmakers to take religious metaphors and use them without any true belief: take Bruno Dumont’s “The Life of Jesus” or the early films of Philippe Garrel. I suppose it’s not surprising that there would be a conservative streak –– temperamentally, if not politically –– in Green’s work, given his obsession with the past. Still, it’s a little disappointing how quickly Vincent, Joseph, and Marie turn into a cozy nuclear family. While I could point out other flaws in “Son of Joseph,” the film won me over in the end. At the risk of sounding like Dr. Phil, it’s a lesson in becoming a better person.

#debbiereynoldskickedass

January 05 - 18, 2017 | GayCityNews.nyc

LONDON, from p.23

for Brexit and Trump. But “Pan” is already a story of wonder, less suited for the Companies treatment of making us look at more serious tales with wider eyes. I was not a fan of hot young director Robert Icke’s “1984” which went from the Almeida to being a longrunning hit in the West End. And his vision of David Hare’s “The Red Barn” (to Jan. 17) adaptation of a George Simenon mystery at the National’s Lyttelton left me cold and not just from the stage blizzard and creepy goings on in the 1969 Connecticut exurbs. It does have another strong performance from Mark Strong — so good in Ivo Van Hove’s “A View from the Bridge” last season on Broadway –– as the sexually frustrated husband, Donald, of chilly spouse Ingrid (Hope Davis). He tries to break out of his fevered cabin by running off to languid Mona (Elizabeth Debicki). Icke’s bells and whistles –– mostly a shifting scrim that opens and closes like an iris –– don’t add much to the fact that there isn’t much there there theatrically that isn’t available on a daily soap. I’d still go to anything Hare writes or that these actors perform, but there was less here than met the director’s eye. Back at the Almeida, however, where Icke is associate director, he has staged a sensational new adaption of Friedrich Schiller’s 1800 “Mary Stuart” (to Jan. 21). It may sound gimmicky to let a coin toss determine which role the lead actors will take on, but it draws the audience into the tension in this battle royal from the moment the lights go down. I saw Juliet Stevenson as Mary and Lia Williams as Elizabeth and despite an almost three-hour playing time, these marvelous actors cleave us to the life-and-death struggle between them aided by an outstanding cast of courtiers: John Light as a sexy Leicester, Alan Williams as humane Talbot, Vincent Franklin as Burleigh, fierce pusher of realpolitik, and Rudi Dharmalingam as Mortimer, whose alternating passions for these crowned heads always leaves us guessing –– despite knowing how this tragic tale will turn out. Netflix’s fine “The Crown,” about GayCityNews.nyc | January 05 - 18, 2017

Elizabeth II, is weak tea compared to the intrigue and muscular combat in this. “Mary Stuart” is dense with ideas, many of them timely and not just because it is performed (mostly) in modern dress. Mary proclaims, “I came to England as a refugee!” Talbot warns, “No one’s head is safe if Mary Stuart loses hers.” And Elizabeth laments, “To serve your people is to be a slave.” As the actors spun about the round playing area, my head was spinning with thoughts about the peril of our fragile globe. Director Ivo Van Hove –– out gay and always out there –– transformed “A View from the Bridge” on Broadway and is on to a modern dress “Hedda Gabler” in a new version of Ibsen’s 1890 play by Patrick Marber at the National’s Lyttelton (to Mar. 21 and NT Live in cinemas). Ruth Wilson (of HBO’s “The Affair”) is troubled Hedda and Kyle Soller her feckless husband Tesman, with Rafe Spall as Brack making a bad marriage worse and Chukwudi Iwuji as the idealistic Lovborg. Setting it in the present day may be intended to show that many women are still trapped by men even in the West. (How, after all, could all those women have voted for President Pussy Grabber?) Hedda’s suicide could be seen as a radical response to her circumstances, but it is hard to pull off theatrically and there are some unintended laughs here rather than shocks.

James Graham’s “This House,” a sprawling political story of the Labour parliaments of the 1970s in Britain and what had to be done by party whips to hang on to power by miniscule margins, started life at the National and is now wowing them at the Garrick Theatre (to Feb. 25) in this season of discontent with all things governmental. Yet “This House” is packing them in and entertaining brilliantly as it informs. The political machinations are often hilarious and sometimes impressive in the Labour efforts to forestall the ascendancy of the unseen Thatcher. Would that there was this much interest in America in how power actually works. We might not be in the situation we are in. Jeremy Herrin directs again with a mostly new ensemble led by the men playing the deputy whips –– Phil Dan-

iels (reprising his role as Labour’s Bob Mellish) and Nathaniel Parker (new as the Tories’ Jack Weatherill). They achieve a moving grace note by show’s end.

their close quarter as Oscar Toeman directed. A non-nostalgic trip back to the 1930s –– where we may all be headed once more unless we stick together.

Simon Callow spent the holidays reprising his one-man “Christmas Carol,” at the Arts Theatre (to Jan.

COMING UP: Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties” with Tom Hollander at the Menier Chocolate Factory (Feb. 3-Apr. 29). Imelda Staunton and Conleth Hill are in Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the Harold Pinter Theatre (Feb. 22–May 27). The Old Vic has Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead” (Feb. 25-Apr. 29) with Daniel Radcliffe, then John Boyega, the new “Star Wars” star, is doing “Woyzeck” (May 6-Jun. 24), followed by a new musical written and directed by Conor McPherson, “Girl from the North Country,” with music and lyrics by Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan (July 12-Oct. 7). David Tennant stars in Patrick Marber’s new “Don Juan in Soho” (Mar. 17-June 10) at Wyndham’s. There is great anticipation for Marianne Elliott’s May revival of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” at the National with Nathan Lane, Andrew Garfield, James McArdle, and Russell Tovey.

7), embodying all the characters in that enduring tale of redemption in an hour and 20 minutes –– something Dickens himself did soon after publishing it in 1843. (I kept yearning for the spirits to haunt Trump before he is inaugurated, but he may be a harder crab to crack than Scrooge.) I caught the first London revival in 80 years of Rodney Ackland’s “After October” (now closed) at the Finborough pub theater that rescues quite wonderful properties much the way New York’s Mint Theatre does. Struggling playwright Clive Monkhams (Adam Buchanan) toils away in a decidedly un-posh Hampstead basement flat sur rounded by family and hangers-on who need him to succeed for their own sakes. The audience shared

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