2011 September » Joe Salvatore

Some thoughts on MCC’s The Submission

Sep 272011

I attended a preview performance of The Submission by Jeff Talbott on Saturday, September 24. Produced by MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel, the production was directed by Walter Bobbie and starred Jonathan Groff, Will Rogers, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Rutina Wesley.

Danny (Jonathan Groff), a young, Yale-trained playwright, has written a play and submitted it to the Humana Festival under a pseudonym. When Humana accepts the play for full production, we learn that Danny has created the name of a woman of color for the pseudonym. He recruits and hires an African American actress named Emilie (Rutina Wesley) to represent him at the festival, and the story follows the resulting challenges that emerge.

While I appreciated Talbott’s attempt at a dialogue on race, homosexuality, and oppression, I found that the play covered ground that’s been plowed under before. The charged nature of the “n-word” and the “f-word” could not sustain the central problem of the play very long, particularly for anyone who has thought about the benefits and deficits of social justice agendas and/or politically correct language. I could see the conflict between Danny and Emilie coming about ten minutes into the performance, and spent the remaining 80 minutes waiting for the unsurprising resolution. For me, the play became pedestrian and two-dimensional fairly quickly.

I did appreciate some of Talbott’s writing. He’s given Danny a very nice monologue about the writing process that Groff handles with great care. And there’s a strong piece for Emilie about why the “n-word” appearing 37 times in one scene of Danny’s play is not appropriate. Wesley delivers the monologue with a proper pitch and tone that allows the audience into the personal conflict at work within this individual, even if only for a moment. Wesley proves herself quite capable in this production, and I’d like to see her in a better play. In other places, Talbott underwrites the characters, essentially leaving them as two-dimensional stereotypes. This is most noticeable in the character of Pete, Danny’s boyfriend. Eddie Kaye Thomas tries to make something of this role, but between the dowdy personality and several misplaced jokes at crisis moments, he’s fighting an uphill battle. Will Rogers, who plays Danny’s best friend Pete and the eventual boyfriend of Emilie, develops a quirkiness in his portrayal that makes him the most watchable and the most curious of the four actors. I saw Rogers in this summer’s Unnatural Acts, and after seeing him here, I’m impressed by his versatility.

Overall, I left this production feeling angry. The content made me angry, mostly because it pressed my buttons. That’s probably a good thing, as here I am four days later still thinking about it. However, I also left wondering how a play in this condition could actually receive a full production. The major conflict scene, where things completely unravel, ran on and on and on. Whether or not this will tighten through the acting or through cuts and edits remains to be seen. The repetition of the argument between Danny and Emilie became tedious and boring. I’m surprised that Walter Bobbie, given his excellent directing record, had less control over this particular moment of the play.

The Submission explores some important territory, but not in a terribly innovative way. I’m grateful for the thoughts that have come up as a result of seeing the work, but I wish that it had pushed a little harder with more sophistication and complexity.

Remembering Craig with a thank you, 10/9/66-9/24/06

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Sep 242011

Five years ago today, my then partner, Craig Hamrick, passed away after a long battle with colon cancer. He passed early in the morning, around 7:30am, following ten days in hospice.

Craig fought his cancer valiantly for almost four years after his diagnosis. He survived a colon resection, a liver resection, the removal of a brain tumor, and rounds and rounds of chemotherapy. He had an incredible will to live, and I learned after he passed that his doctors hadn’t really expected him to survive much beyond a year. He was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in October 2002, with cancer in his large intestine, liver and his lungs. Somehow, Craig fought his way through all of that disease, managed to beat it back multiple times, self-published three books, took countless photos, traveled, and raised our two cats, Buster and Dusty. All while maintaining his dry sense of humor, which for those who knew him, you know that his delivery was priceless.

I learned a lot from Craig and our relationship during this difficult time. A lot about positivity and productivity, and a lot about really being with someone. Craig and I were together for about 15 months before he was diagnosed, so most of our relationship included his illness. It was my first long-term relationship and my first time living with someone, and then add a chronic illness on top of it, and our ride together was not always the smoothest. I often think back to moments of strife that we had together and wish that I knew then what I know now. Such a cliche to say, but it’s the truth. I can only hope that Craig knew how much he and our experiences together meant to me, including his passing. It’s a privilege that he allowed me to be there with him as he transitioned, and it’s one that I will never forget.

Thinking about loss, and this loss in particular, always brings up questions about whether I do enough. Whether I love enough. Whether I pay attention enough. As I reflect on that question and sit with it, I usually come to the conclusion that I did as much as I could. I do as much as I can. People like to say that love is unconditional, and I think there are moments when it is, when it needs to be. However, love can also be exhausting, caring can be exhausting, and those feelings of frustration that sometimes accompany love are natural and part of being human. We have to feel and experience those difficult feelings along with the joy, happiness, and contentment that come with love. This complexity shows us our humanity, and the more we pay attention to the complexity, the better off we become.

Craig left me an eight-page list of instructions when he passed, a gift that let me know that he believed that I did enough. I still had to spend the time believing that and accepting that loving and caring come with moments of imperfection and anger and weakness. Wrestling with all of this then and now has helped me in so many ways. I know that all of my current relationships, including my romantic one, benefit from that time with Craig, and for that I will always be grateful.

Craig, you left us so early, but you left us with so much. Your legacy of love and humor and passion run deep for those who knew you. Wherever your spirit may be, I hope you can feel the love that we have for you. Thanks for sharing your heart. I love you and miss you.

Craig’s personal website is still active here.

Take responsibility and pay attention

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Sep 212011

Fourteen-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer took his own life on Sunday after years of bullying. Ironically, Jamey recorded a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign back in May of this year. Anderson Cooper recaps Jamey’s story in the video below, and he reveals several politicians and organization leaders who believe that bullying isn’t a problem.

I’m grateful to Dan Savage and the thousands of people who have posted these “It Gets Better” videos, but further steps need to be taken. Young people need and deserve more than inspirational videos.

My post on bullying last week received a lot of support, and I appreciate it. If you’re reading this post and watching the video below, please make a commitment to PAY ATTENTION and don’t let bullying happen when you’re the adult or the person in power in a given situation. You’d be surprised who’s watching and who you may actually help. We can’t stop at recording videos, and we need people outside of the LGBTQ community to serve as allies at every step of the way.

Please share this post, forward it to friends and colleagues, and use the words “Pay Attention” when you do. It sounds simple enough. Let’s make it simple in action as well.

Someone’s finally attempting to play some hard ball

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Sep 192011

With the emphasis on “attempting.”

Barack Obama revealed his deficit plan today in a speech in the White House Rose Garden. The New York Times reports that Obama is seeking $1.5 trillion in tax increases on the wealthy and corporations. Of course, Republicans screamed “class warfare” which sounds like a white person yelling “reverse racism.” I love how these people in positions of power appropriate the language of the oppressed to describe their positions. Makes absolutely no sense at all.

Who knows how any of this will ultimately affect the deficit reduction plan that needs approval from Congress by December 23? I’m much more interested in the fact that Obama stated that “he would veto any approach that relied solely on spending reductions to address the fiscal shortfall.” Increased taxes need to be part of the plan. Essentially, he’s thrown down the gauntlet, playing hardball if you will, a move that I expect the President of the United States to make much sooner than three years into this presidency. The news article states that Obama’s threat provides a clear position that can help to fuel his run for re-election. Fine, but I’d rather leave the re-election out of it.

I understand that Obama’s strategy of playing the middle on policy is what he said that he would do during his first campaign. Break down party lines and work across the aisle. Lovely sentiment. Where’s the tambourine?

Very little of his approach has worked so far, so I think it’s time that he opened a can of Ronald Reaganesque Whoop Ass and started to lead. Make these statements, stand by them, and face the music. If he keeps letting John Boehner and the House control the discourse, we might as well cash in our chips and go home.

The citizens of the United States are looking for leadership that has immediate, recognizable results. The vast majority of people do not seem to respect intellectual discourse, rational thinking, or future planning. They want action, and they want it now. Personally, I’d prefer a more thoughtful approach to all of this, but not at the expense of having to listen to sheer idiocy all the time from a growing number of politicians who disrupt forward motion with their ineptitude. If this is a democracy, it’s time to give it to people the democratic way. Let majority rule. We’ll see how the majority feels about democracy after they’ve had it good and hard.

Let the games begin. No Nerf Balls allowed.

Stop bullying: it’s not brain surgery, people

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Sep 142011

In yesterday’s New York Times, Erik Eckholm shed some important light on a community in Wisconsin struggling with bullying and homosexuality. Here’s the article. The Anoka-Hennepin School District has faced eight student deaths attributed to suicides over the past two years, and it’s believed that four of those students who killed themselves were struggling with issues of sexual identity. District policy states that teachers must remain neutral on issues of sexual orientation, which means that teachers cannot discuss or mention sexual orientation in any way. Many teachers and administrators contest that this is preventing them from stopping the bullying in their classrooms and schools.

The district’s neutrality policy ties the hands of the teachers, people who spend more time with young people than a parent actually does, at least on a typical school day. Last fall when a rash of student suicides gained national attention, I thought about the responsibility that a teacher in a classroom has to prevent students from being bullied or feeling unsafe because of anything other than the learning that needs to happen. This school district, which sits mostly in Michele Bachmann’s congressional district, has silenced the leaders and the facilitators; therefore, there’s no way to model acceptable, humane behavior around difference as it pertains to sexual identity and gender expression.

As a middle school and high school student, I can honestly say that I did not really understand my sexuality, but many boys around me certainly thought I was different and used words like “gay,” “fag,” and “homo” to describe me. One guy in particular, who I think is a minister now (lovely), used to constantly ask me if I believed in gay rights. I would say I did because I was trying to be accepting of others, and then that just made things worse for me. I was naive and pretty stupid when it came to protecting myself. I had been taught not to fight, and I was terrified of getting into trouble at school. The “derogatory” words and the questions were painful and difficult to get out from under. When I tried to talk to people about this, I was most often told to just “let the comments roll off my back. Be the bigger person. They’re just jealous.” These pieces of passive advice did not help me in the least, and ultimately just magnified how badly I felt about myself. I know that the people offering these pieces of advice meant well. I also now recognize that I must have been a confusing young adult to offer counsel to.

Thankfully, I had a couple of teachers who would help me and tell me that these guys who were giving me a problem were jerks. Side note: the irony of so much of this is that now some of these guys want to be friends with me on Facebook. I wonder if they actually think that I forget the names that they used to call me. Or if they even remember using those words to describe me. Double the irony when I see that that they now have kids of their own. I wonder if their kids are being bullied or are bullies. But I digress. The point here is that I had a COUPLE of teachers who helped me. In large part, these teachers were female. The male teachers, particularly where the harassment was the worst, like gym class, were unhelpful, and I felt sometimes were even contributing to the bullying. And this didn’t stop with teachers. I played on a local soccer team for a number of years, and the verbal harassment was often the worst at those practices, where a coach was someone’s parent and did nothing to stop the verbal bullying. I remember one moment in particular. I was in the 7th grade, and we were having a team scrimmage. I played right wing on that team. I was dribbling the ball, and across the field, the left winger yelled something like, “Pass, the ball, Fag!” Nothing happened to that left winger, but I rode my bike home that evening feeling pretty awful and wondering why this guy would call me this name. And also wondering why no one did anything to come to my defense, especially the coach.

Here’s another example. In the summer between my junior and senior year in high school, I was selected to attend New Jersey Boys State. This was supposed to be some great honor, sponsored by the state VFW. Boys in my class were interviewed and then we were selected as delegates by the local VFW. We had to go to Rider College and spend a week electing two houses of a state congress and a Boys State governor. We all had to wear the same clothes, literally march back and forth to meals, and live in hot, stuffy, dorm rooms with an assigned roommate. I became the Election Board Official for my dorm city, and the VFW mentor, Norman, tried to get me to participate beyond counting votes. I couldn’t quite get myself to participate fully in the shirtless pissing matches that were going on in the dorm common room, so I stayed in my room and read To Kill a Mockingbird. So gay…

One evening, the various dorm cities came together for a primary vote, and the Election Board Officials had to count the votes by a show of hands. We were in this lecture hall, and I was standing in the aisle, and these boys were trying to give me false numbers, as a way to throw the vote. They kept calling me “fag” and “homo” and trying to intimidate me so I would report different numbers than the counts indicated. There were adults around, but no one did anything to stop the name calling. In retrospect, I find it ironic that a state program meant to teach civic responsibility would allow this kind of blatant harassment of another student.

These are just a couple of examples where I think that adults failed to help a young person who was being verbally bullied by his peers. And I wasn’t even identifying as gay at those points in my life. But for some reason, we have allowed these words and this kind of harassment to continue and to be “ok.” I know from people who live in my hometown that bullying still exists and that adults still aren’t doing anything about it. And for me, this spells trouble. Why are teachers, school administrators, coaches, Sunday School teachers, and anyone else working with young people not held accountable for protecting a young person’s right to dignity?

Regardless of what Michele Bachmann and her posse have to say about homosexuality, I’ve got news for all of them. Gay people are not going away any time soon. Even if they believe that gayness is some kind of genetic mutation, we’ve got generations to go before that mutation works itself out of the gene pool. It’s like having an appendix, people. Accept that it’s around, and stop worrying about what’s for. Homosexual behavior will not disappear as long as sexual desire exists, and gay identity is creeping closer and closer to the center of our culture. If you stop and think how many “gay” things everyday people do now, you’ll realize that what I say is true. I have four letters to say: “YMCA.” This song happens at every hetero wedding I’ve ever been to, yet it’s SUPER GAY. Heterosexuals LOVE to appropriate gayness, and I LOVE it.

So, I didn’t tell my tales of bullying woe to get any sympathy. I don’t need anyone’s sympathy. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, presumably gayer than I’ve ever been by some people’s standards, and my life is pretty great. However, I shared those moments to illustrate that ADULTS need to step up here. ADULTS could do a lot of good work around stopping young people from bullying each other. ADULTS, regardless of what religious beliefs they have, could encourage young people to stop judging and pouncing on difference. When an adult is in a position of power or authority over a gr0up of young people, s/he needs to model the acceptance of difference. If we really live in the United States and believe in all the hoo hah of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, then ADULTS better start to model that, and remind young people that the LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance includes the DIFFERENT kids in the classroom.

This community in Wisconsin is just the beginning. Michele Bachmann better get her act together and stop wiping about this. And Barack Obama too. And all the rest of these so-called leaders. Basic human rights, people. Basic human rights. It’s not brain surgery. And the toilet paper rolls are empty.

The silver lining of a tragedy

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Sep 112011

The days leading up to the 10th anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy have been filled with stories of loss and focused on the negative effects of that day. Granted, the world as a whole changed drastically, and countless individuals’ worlds changed to something beyond their recognition. I woke up this morning, just ahead of the time that the first plane hit the North Tower back in 2001, and I noted that moment. I started my day thinking that I might succeed in avoiding some of the media coverage, but before long, I found myself in front of the television, watching and listening to people read the names of loved ones lost. I made it through about 30 names or so, and then changed the channel. It was too much, and I felt a bit like I was choking.

The History Channel was showing a documentary containing footage from a variety of different sources, and as I watched, I recognized some local news people who were shoving cameras and microphones in people’s faces to get comments as the disaster unfolded. I found myself wondering what these guys must be thinking when they’re in these moments. What drives them to pursue news like this when they’re so close to being in harm’s way?

As the day continued, I knew that I wanted to write something for my blog, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I wanted to say. I’ve told my story about where I was so many times (teaching then working), and that I didn’t live or work (in Brooklyn) close to the Towers (in Manhattan). For a few years after the event, whenever I met someone new outside of New York City, one of the “getting to know me” questions was typically about 9-11. I think the mythology around the disaster grew much faster and quicker outside of New York City. People living in the five boroughs and in the immediate suburbs dealt with the ramifications on a daily basis, whereas people outside of the greater metropolitan area for the most part watched and listened to accounts of what was happening. These people had to fill in blanks for themselves, and I think that might have contributed to a national mythology around the disasters in New York City, Washington, DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And please don’t think that I mean “mythology” in a negative way. I mean it in the way that we create stories to explain events that we don’t entirely understand, in the same way that the Greeks created stories to explain natural events that they couldn’t understand, like the rising and setting of the sun or the changing of the seasons.

My day yielded very little inspiration. I have nothing terribly profound to say about 9-11 itself. I was lucky to be away from the site of the disaster, and I am happy to say that I did not know anyone directly who died in the building collapses. However, today I did begin to feel a sense of gratitude for the experience of living in New York City when this event happened. I realized last week, in a conversation with my boyfriend, that had I not moved here in June 1999 and waited, I might have never made it. I’m not sure that I’d have had the guts to move here after such a horrific event. I barely made it here to begin with, and an attack of this scale and scope would certainly have not made me any more eager to become a New Yorker.

But what I’ve come to recognize today is that the events surrounding 9-11 actually galvanized my will to be a New Yorker, and in many ways taught me what a great city I’d chosen to make my home. There are days when I wonder how many more years I can take the hustle and bustle, and then other days when I’m pretty sure that this will be my home until I don’t need one anymore. And moving through 9-11 as a resident of the city prepared me for my own personal challenges that would follow not so many years later. I somehow absorbed the lessons of survival and perseverance that so many people exhibited during the days and weeks after 9-11, and I’m grateful that I was able to bear witness to all of it.

When my first partner Craig became ill with colon cancer in October 2002, and as I watched him fight that illness for four years, I tried to tell myself that there had to be a lesson embedded in all of it. Somewhere. Lessons presented themselves, even after Craig’s death, and my experiences of his illness and then losing him are tragic ones that I cherish, even though they were some of the most harrowing of my life. I think I looked for the lessons as I moved through those experiences with Craig because 9-11 taught me that there are lessons. It’s just that sometimes the lessons that we need to learn don’t always feel so good as we’re learning them.

Like millions of people around the world, I mourn the loss of life from 9-11, and I also mourn the loss of a world that seemed to be a little less heavy and burdened on September 10, 2001. But at the same time, I find myself thankful for the experiences of 9-11 and beyond, because I know that the adversity of those moments in my life have made me believe in the power of the human spirit and its ability to survive. That’s the silver lining in the tragedy.