Art to heart
Intimate Friends takes everything so many have in common,
places it right in the middle of the straight world , and says,
‘ Let this be the hub of the tire for the moment! *
— Miriam Moses
BY
B R A D Y
J E N S E N
ays and lesbians present an ambivalent
face to the worL of the arts, and nowhere
is this more clear than in situations where those
arts are produced by us and for us. While we
frequently bemoan the lack of books, plays,
movies, and concerts about us, gay and lesbian
artists do produce fine works of literature and
turn in outstanding performances in the arts,
but, alas, to little critical or popular notice in the
G
mainstream.
Musician and composer Miriam Moses holds
some very strong opinions on the role of the arts
in the gay community. Ms. Moses is the author
of Intimate Friends, a musical revue which will
play the Portland Center for the Performing
Arts later this month. Ms. Moses is a New York
native who left a very successful career in thea
ter and came to Seattle seven years ago, as she
puts it, “ to change my life.”
I had the pleasure of talking with Miriam
Moses one evening soon after Intimate Friends
ended its successful twelve week run at Seat
tle's Theatre Off Jackson. Along the way, we
focused on obligations — those which gay and
lesbian artists have to their communities and
vice versa.
JENSEN: We’ve talked about your not wanting
to have Intimate Friends be evaluated a s4 ‘good
for gay theater” —
MOSES: Right.
JENSEN: — Do you see it as gay theater?
MOSES: Certainly, in some ways. Well, let’s
define what gay theater is. Gay theater is thea
ter. Gay theater is new, but it identifies itself as
gay theater so that gay people will know when
they go to it that it’s got something to do with
them, whereas if it doesn’t say gay theater on it,
we don't know whether it’s about us or not, so
we don't identify it as gay theater.
But just because a show is about somebody
gay or has a gay theme, doesn’t make it good
theater. And because a woman is gay and she
sings songs doesn’t make her a good singer and
it doesn’t make them good songs. We so much
seek to go to be entertained with things that are
about us that we will, in fact, pay for and settle
for less than what any straight audience would.
They'd say, “ That was a rip-off.” But we
won’t, we'll say, “ At least it was about us. at
least we got something out of it. So it wasn’t
great, so the speaker system was crummy, so
they didn’t have good costumes, so what, it was
about us.”
I’m saying that you’re damn right, it’s about
us, and it deserves as much dignity as we can
give it. as much professionalism, as much
lavishness as merits the piece itself. What's the
matter, we don't have that right ' We get to settle
for less? So we have an obligation to ourselves,
to our own community, as well as to the larger
community — including the whole theater com
munity, gay or straight — and to the larger
community of all possible audiences, of pre
senting a piece of theater or a concert or what
ever. as works of excellence. We need to com
pete in the same superstructure.
I might write a show that doesn’t touch you so
you walk away feeling cold, but at least it should
be. to the best o f my ability, a well-crafted
and place it right in the middle of the straight
world and say. “ Let this be the hub of the tire
for the moment.”
Theater ,md art have always been used by
societies 10 advance those societies, that’s what
they re there for. The artists and musicians are
the movers and shakers. We were able to stop a
war in Viet Nam with music and poetry (and a
little bit of drugs), but we could do that because
everybody was really clear on what they wanted.
Not because “ Blowin’ in the Wind” could
really stop a war, it couldn’t; but with every
body singing it. it certainly could. So that was a
situation where something was put out, and
little by little. people came back and said this is
what we want, until you had Legionnaires march
ing in anti-war parades when their own kids
were old enough to get drafted.
So it’s obligatory that the audience, the
patrons of the arts, take the responsibility to say,
“ Yes this is demanded.” and to say. “ Yes, we
hear this.” and to say, “ Now we want you logo
further."
We’ve had an amazing response to Intimate
Friends in Seattle. The response has been unbe
lievable. We get letters, all kinds of statements
from people about what the show did for them,
what it did for them as human beings. When
somebody comes to see a show and then goes
through their phone book and calls everybody
they know, including people who never go to
theater in the first place, and say, “ You must
see this show.” then that person sits in that
audience and that person, just by who they are
sitting there, is telling the cast v/hat they want.
And I 'm sir ing hack there and I’m watching that
interaction and I'm saying. “ Okay. Miriam,
they want you to go further now.” I’m knowing
that, and the only way I can know that is by
having the audience accept its responsibility as
an audience.
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Miriam Moses
show. It should be a well-done show. My ability
as a writer and my skill as a writer also have to
figure into that.
And I need to have fine actors, an outstand
ing director, and the best of all set designers. It
doesn't mean that we’re going to come up with
a hit, but it does mean that when you go in there
and you pay your $12 and you don’t like it, it
will have been a good show done well. That we
have a right to expect. We have this obligation
to ourselves as a community to develop our
selves as craftsmen who compete with the rest
of the world for the same jobs that everybody
else competes for. Our audiences shouldn't
have to leave saying, “ Well, at least it was
about us.”
JENSEN: Do you see gay theater as having an
outreach, a mission role to the straight
community?
MOSES: I see myself as having that because
I’m willing to do that. That’s a question of
willingness, a question of personal need on my
part. Traversing those worlds to me is important.
I don’t think that I will learn the maximum that
I’m going to learn without traversing these worlds.
I have to associate with the best artists I can
find regardless of whom they sleep with, and
I’m assuming that they will associate with me
regardless of whom I sleep with for the sake of
the development of the art form itself. And
because I will that for myself, I also see that as a
gay person I have the responsibility. I have the
responsibility as a Jew, also; and I have that
resonsibility as a woman. I have that responsi-
blity for all of the things that I am. There’s a
thing that Jews always say, “ You can’t be ex
pected to change the world, but you can be
expected to try.”
For me, personally, as a value I place on
myself, if you have a talent, you have the obli
gation to develop it. And if you then develop it.
you have the obligation to use it. and if you use
it, you have the responsibility of using it well.
JENSEN: So you have an obligation to yourself
and you’ve expressed an obligation to the com
munity to present well-crafted, well-designed,
productions. What obligations do we as a com
munity have back?
MOSES: Most people can only, and should
only, say I like this better than that. It's another
step. From that point on. you should say. “ at
least we want this much.”
If you want us to take that risk, you have to
support it. It’s a much greater risk for us finan
cially. As artists, we’re going much further than
we need to go. My show is going much further
than a show needs to go because it’s trying to
take everything that so manv have in common
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