REVIEW: Charting LGBTQIA+ history, through parable and song
Photo: Themba Mvula (center) and the ensemble offer a fable-like retelling of LGBTQIA+ history. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Berger / Provided by Resnicow and Associates with permission.
NEW YORK — Earlier this month the Park Avenue Armory played host to a unique amalgam of various artistic forms in order to tell the history of the LGBTQIA+ community and human rights movements. The F****** and Their Friends Between Revolutions — the title uses a reclaimed word that can be found at this link — utilizes everything from fable storytelling to dance to opera to music to community participation in order to instill in the audience a sense of wonder, accomplishment, danger and triumph.
The 100-minute, intermissionless work features actor-musicians who are expert at movement and collective artistry. Their ruminations play out on a gargantuan stage at the Armory, with various props and costumes lining the space. Everything feels informal and DIY, which is appropriate given the organic, natural way the narrative is built.
The show, based on a seminal book from 1977 by Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta, attempts to tell this history, but not with specific dates and events. Instead, composer Philip Venables and director Ted Huffman strive to make that history almost religious, as if a person were flipping through pages in a sacred text or a well-worn copy of an ancient parable. There’s also something operatic about the creation, something theatrical and musical, too. The show’s inability to be easily categorized is one of its strongest suits.
Lines of dialogue are uttered and then repeated, again and again, with sentences growing longer and longer with each recitation. The poetry of these words is almost hypnotic, with the repetition allowing the actors to emphasize certain points for the audience. Some of the dialogue speaks to the somberness of the proceedings, with the performers offering a measured cadence to their delivery. Other times, the lines are screamed with a frenetic pace, as if the wake-up call needs to be heard and respected.
Although the show is a communal effort, there are some standouts in the cast. Kit Green is a marvel as a central figure in this truth-telling, and one of the highlights is when she stops the proceedings and directly addresses the crowd, giving them a role to play in the building up of this narrative. Another excellent addition is Yandass, who also takes on a storyteller role, leading the recitations and keeping the company moving along as the tale unfolds.
At any moment when watching the work, it feels as if the performers could bound off the stage and shake the audience’s hands in the seating area. A few times they do break that fourth wall, but perhaps not enough. There’s a sense that what Venables and Huffman have created is inspired by the Living Theatre, the Wooster Group and other experimental art collectives, but they seem to approach the line of fulll-on experimentation but then pull back a little bit. One wonders if the stage in the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall were gone, and the performers played out the proceedings on a bare floor, with no physical restrictions whatsoever, if the piece would have been unleashed to explore and expand even more.
Still, what audiences enjoyed (and learned from) over these two weeks of performances at the Park Avenue Armory was simply revelatory. It was hard to walk away and not contextualize the history of communities unfairly marginalized in society. Yet, the enduring legacy of those difficulties is how the communities overcame obstacles and attained joy, identity and reclamation.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The F****** and Their Friends Between Revolutions, composed by Philip Venables and directed Ted Huffman, is based on the 1977 book by Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta. The show recently played the Wade Thompson Drill Hall at the Park Avenue Armory. Runtime: 100 minutes with no intermission. Click here for more information.
