(out of 
)Some shows target very specific audiences. While they can be understood and enjoyed by those outside of the defined parameter, it is meant to create the greatest response in its intended group. For ECHO Pride Productions and Davis Productions' offering, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, this target audience is the ten-plus percent of our population wrongly forced to be ashamed of their sexual alignment. The effectiveness of this play is definitely enhanced for those to whom the script is speaking, but everyone can learn from and appreciate this theatrical offering.
The kiss referred to in the title is a metaphorical one, concerning
the gift of pride and self-awareness given to a gay man upon seeing
the famed Public Theatre production of The Normal Heart
by Larry Kramer. This seminal moment in theatre, when AIDS and
the homosexual lifestyle was dealt with in a refreshingly honest
and highly critical manner, is celebrated, and passed along by
the actor in this one-person show. To do this, every method of
empathetic stirring is used, some effectively, some not as, to
get the audience to the same level of awareness as the author
and main character. From calls-to-arms to witty looks at the Greenwhich
Village subculture to fanciful dreams of an ideal future, the
play's seven vignettes go over old ground and new in an attempt
to raise the awareness of the straight community, and to spur
the homosexual community to action. Played earnestly and with
an intense focus by Rusty Ferracane and tightly directed
by Matthew Mazuroski, the play is an oddity for me: a one-man
show that nearly works.
The plight of the homosexual community is a worthy topic for theatre,
and several wonderful plays since Mr. Kramer's have gone a certain
distance in offering reconciliation between two groups separated
by a gulf of misunderstanding and ignorance. Unfortunately, as
the recent spate of publicized hate-crimes proves, ignorance is
still too strong an adversary. This play is highly politicized,
and definitely benefits from a deeper understanding and knowledge
of the internal and external problems that face the community.
Theatrically, though, it sometimes attempts to do too many things
at once, and comes dangerously close to being more of a political
tract than a play. But, there's just enough humor and humanity
to keep it from falling too far into the style of the worker's
plays of the 1930's.
Messr's. Ferracane and Mazuroski intensive work on this piece
is evident from the beginning. The play is tightly performed,
and practically choreographed in style and movement. This works
with some of the stories, such as the two most diametrically opposing-themed
"Why I Go To The Gym" and "12-Inch Single."
It causes the more storytelling and presentational stories, "Owed
To The Village People" and "And The Way We Were,"
to seem more manipulative and emotionally oversold than they need
to be.
While textually, "Why I Go To The Gym" is weaker with
its use of moral-broadcasting terms and repetition of words, Mr.
Ferracane delivers it with such credibility and conviction, it's
almost criminal to knock it. At the opposite end of the spectrum,
"12-Inch Single," with music by Steve Sandberg
and staging by Michael Barnard is a light-to-dark look
at the protocol of the club scene and the tellingness of Romance
ads, and is the theatrical highlight to the show. Mr. Ferracane
does a very impressive job portraying all layers of the Romance
ad stratum, from open queens looking for love to closeted bisexuals
looking for danger. Effectively staged and performed is the potentially
sappy story, "A Thousand Points Of Light," which Mr.
Ferracane manages to present without being too sweet, allowing
the storytelling of the situations overcome the emotional intent
of the text.
On the opposite side, the youthful presentation of "Owed
To The Village People" is just too cutesy to work, both textually
and in presentation. While it is an interesting look into the
pre-adolescent beginnings of homosexuality, the script seems to
pander more than present, and Mr. Ferracane is too over the top
to make this scene work. Weak, too, is the final scene, "And
The Way We Were," which creates a giddy future world after
the revolution where gay and straight live in equality, because
of the struggles of today's oppressed. While the message is earnest,
and appreciable, the ideal is almost a '50s icon-laden better
world that seems to take some of the bad things of heterosexually
wedded bliss as a goal of all this struggle. I should hope that
equality would mean more than that.
It's great to see the original founders of the greatly missed
The Actors Group collaborating again. While this production
is not as overwhelmingly amazing as some of that company's contributions'
to Phoenix theatre, it is definitely a must-see for its intended
target audience, and an interesting theatrical presentation for
the rest of us.
Production Details:
The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me by David Drake
ECHO Pride Productions in Association with Davis Productions
On The Spot Theatre, Phoenix
April 16th - May 2nd, 1999