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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1986)
Seven Sundays plays from March 28th through April 12th in the Portland Civic Theatre Blue Room on Friday and Saturday evenings at 11:30 (take a nap beforehand. I’m sure you d o n ’t want to miss any of it). Tickets are only three dollars in advance and three- fifty at the door. Seven Sundays is an inde pendent production by Nocturne Produc tions, but reservations can be made at the Portland Civic box office. Oregonian's "buddy" play at Blue Room by E. Jane Westlake Theatre pieces can provide us with fairly dependable historical sources. We could pick up M axim Gorky's work to see what was go ing on for the lower classes in Russia around the tim e o f the revolution, and a few of Ibsen’s plays tell us how wom en were being treated eighty years ago. In the next century, som e one will be studying As Is, The Normal Heart. and maybe even Seven Sundays and be able to gain some understanding of the AIDS crisis. He o r she m ight com e to see what it was like for the American gay man during a tim e when a frightening epidem ic was spreading through the gay population. Unlike As Is and The Normal Heart. Seven Sundays is not a product o f New York. It's a hom e grown piece by local playwright Michael Scott Reed, a graduate of Lewis and Clark College. It premiered at Lewis and Clark and is being produced again right here in Portland. The director, Paul Mortimer, feels that it surpasses the New York plays in m ak ing a hum an statement and deserves a m uch wider audience. That is why Mortimer, upon seeing Seven Sundays perform ed at Lewis and Clark, decided that he wanted to direct the play himself. Interestingly and encouragingly, M ortim er is not gay. He feels, however, that this has not presented a problem for him in terms of ef "Normal Heart" raises difficult qestions by Rodger Larson The AIDS crisis has had a profound effect on how gay men think, feel, and live. The early days o f the epidem ic in New York C ity— fro m 1981 to 1984 — are chronicled in Larry K ram er’s play The Normal Heart currently being produced by the Storefront A ctor’s Theater under the direction of Robert Nielsen. The play is about AIDS, but it’s also about love. It’s about dying, but also about choices. It’s about fear, but also about struggle. The Storefront production is well staged — with generally fine acting, pleasing sets and lighting, and a fast pace which never allows the bleak subject matter to become mired in sentimentality. Portland audiences, and the gay co m m u n ity in particular, are fortunate to have such a fine production available to them. The play is an angry play; it’s central char acter, Ned Weeks, is an angry man. He recog nizes the threat that AIDS poses, but no one will listen to his warnings. The straight press isn't interested in reporting the deaths of gay m en and the threat of the disease. The m edi cal establishm ent and governm ent agencies that fund it choose to ignore the growing epidem ic. The gay men o f New York are not interested in hearing that the party is over and that prom iscuity is linked to death. Weeks' response is anger — there is a lot of shouting in this play. Underlying all the shout ing are im portant questions of responsibility, and the m eaning of being gay. Does the gay c o m m u n ity have the responsibility to protect its m em bers? If it does, then does it have the right to tell people how to live their lives? Does gay liberation mean limitless prom is 16 Kevin Leinbach and Doug Martin in Seven Sundays through April 12, a t the PCT Blue Room. fectively interpreting the play. “ I thought — A m I the right person to direct this play?’ It’s a very hum an play. It teaches about human nature and human relationships,” he said. M ortim er feels that this play is about friend ship, and how friendship form s that w ouldn’t have under other circumstances. He also feels that what the playwright says about sex uality and relationships relates to M ortim er’s own heterosexuality. “ It says something about how you romanticize about someone and then when you get involved and get to know them, it’s a hassle,” he said. W ith Seven Sundays maybe our historian o f tom orrow will also see beyond the issue of the AIDS crisis and see herself or himself reflected in what Reed has written. Maybe by then everyone in the heterosexual world will see gay issues and feelings as human issues and feelings as Paul M ortim er does. cuity and if not, then what else does it mean? The Normal Heart raises these questions against the backdrop o f a personal drama. In the m idst o f this crusade to curb the spread o f AIDS Weeks finds love. His unfolding rela tionship with Felix provides a counterpoint to the cause that dominates so m uch of Weeks’ life. W atching him and Felix develop into lov ers, we com e to understand the real meaning o f Weeks’ struggle. The warmth, the tender ness, and the sweetness we see as these two m en touch and kiss gives this play an em o tional depth that goes beyond the rantings of a social protest play. Playwright Kramer has raised difficult questions. Not everyone will accept his an swers. The play serves an im portant function if it stimulates discussion and provokes us to find ou r own answers. Beyond that, this pro duction by Storefront is good, gripping thea ter. D irector Nielsen and the cast deserve credit for bringing the play to life and making public the very private experience of dealing with AIDS. Side, Parting Glances shows the lives of a group o f gays living in a city where gay polit ics and social issues are an integral part of the contem porary milieu. That cute couple next door by Jay Brown There’s this beautiful young couple spend ing their last day together before one of them leaves for a two-year assignment in Africa. It’s a pretty ordinary story — snuggle-bunnies in the afternoon and afterwards a little shopping and a visit with a sick friend; a farewell dinner hosted by the boss and off to a going-away party. Then the business of getting through the next day until the plane leaves for Africa. Parting Glances, nevertheless, is an extra ordinary movie. Robert and Michael are the beautiful couple and the sick friend. Nick, has AIDS. Shot in Manhattan's “ Yupper” West For me, watching Parting Glances was like entering a whole new territory. It’s a movie about gay people that’s devoid of all those Hollywood cliches — no guilt (and wonder of wonders, the PWA doesn’t feel guilty, either), no long-suffering wife, etc., etc., etc. The characters are next-door neighbors who hap pen to be gay. Parting Glances is the kind of m ovie I’ve been waiting a long tim e for. W hat story there is hinges on Michael’s resentm ent at being “ abandoned” by Robert, but by the end even that is irrelevant A great deal happens in Parting Glances, though, because it’s one of those charming, quiet film s that are chock full o f nuance and quirky little jo k e s — Betty, the boss’ wife (deliciously played by Yolande Bavan) telling Michael that she’s always known about her husband’s “ big secret” and couldn’t care less. This skewering of the closeted gay married man is a delight. There’s even some very contemporary politics — Nick is videotaping his will and says “ I leave all my money to GMHC (Gay M en’s Health Crisis], but only for PWA’s be cause the government that spends trillions of dollars on bom bs can spend a little on AIDS research.” Parting Glances is ex-musician Bill Sherw ood’s first feature film. After 15 years of intense musical studies and composition, in cluding two years at the Juilliard School, Sherwood gave up the full-tim e pursuit of m usic in 1972 at the advanced age of 20. A year later he enrolled as an undergraduate at Hunter College, starting off as an English major. But an introductory film course taken as a lark changed everything. Finding that film incorporates many o f the things im portant to him — sound, photography, Playwright Michael Scott Reed describes Seven Sundays as “ a play about friendship." The play involves two gay men, otherwise strangers, who meet when one becomes a "b u d d y" (or in Portland parlance, a PAL) for the other. The play docum ents seven Sun days in the lives o f these two men. Reed stresses that “Seven Sundays is not an issue play. The name of the disease isn’t even mentioned. The play is about surviving, be cause we all have to die, don't we?" Reed did the research for Seven Sundays when on an internship with The New York Native in 1984. The play, written the following year, has been performed and well received at both Reed and Lewis and Clark colleges. In addition, Lewis and Clark Reed’s alma mater has staged two other of his plays. He has also written a full length play about female im personators. “ It’s kind of festive,” he reports. Currently Reed is directing Side by Side by Sondheim at Pentangle Theatre in his native Salem. He is also working on a new play, The Victory Party, about a custody battle “ with a gay theme.” “ Sounds like I like gay themes, doesn’t it?’ Reed observed. — W.C.M. li terature, performance — and feeling that cinem a is in the process of creating a tradi tion as strong as that of classical music, Sherwood quickly switched to film studies. While at Hunter he made two short 16mm film s using as assistants and crew members som e o f the same people who later worked with him on Parting Glances. W ithin the next ten years Sherwood had gained a degree in film production from Hunter and a lot of practical experience in both the financial and production ends of film m aking by working for a small NY pro duction company. Realizing that he needed tim e to write the film s he would want to direct, Sherwood got a “ survival jo b ” in the CBS News financial department. His office-mate at CBS was Kathy Kinney, an improvisational com edienne who appears at many of New York’s com edy clubs and plays Joan in Part ing Glances. Sherwood shot Parting Glances on a $300,000 budget, a feat alm ost unheard of in today’s film m aking world. But there is no thing in the film which shows any stinting on quality, it’s state of the art. Because of a rule change by the Screen A ctor’s guild which now prohibits union actors from working with non-union actors, Sherwood cast his film with theatre, television and club perform ers who are all making their screen debuts in Parting Glances. Steve Buscemi (N ick) is half a com edy team; Richard Ganoung (Michael) has worked primarily as a stage actor; John Bolger (Robert) plays an on-going character in the TV soap opera “ The Guiding Light.” The "gay” film may have com e of age with Parting Glances, and may have some of the same im pact as Taxi Zum Klo had several years ago. I think we re lucky to have som e one as sensitive and caring as Bill Sherwood leading the way. Take your kids to see Parting Glances — and take your parents, too. Parting Glances opens in Portland on Just Out, April, 1986