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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 7, 2004)
may 7.2004' T S 11 I U K T A T C Kl w».JH b S &* Ä m Reality theater Confessions reveal the true story of a spiritual survivor by T imothy K rause teven Fales says he’s an “oxy-Mormon.” He was once the epitome of a nice straight hoy— Boy Scout, missionary, hus band and father of two. When he began to explore his sexuality, however, the Mormon Church quickly excommunicated him, and his family subsequently abandoned him. He journeyed to New York to start anew as an actor, writer— and gay man. Lonely and broke, Fales turned to prostitution and drugs. Only after a life-changing moment amid a cheesy self-improvement workshop did the young man again find his “smile,” that unique ly Mormon manifestation of integrity itself. Fales, who recently relocated to the Port land area, shares his personal transformation in Confessions of a Mormon Boy, an autobiographi cal one-man show that plays May 14 to 29 at Hollywood Theatre before stopping in Salt Lake City on its way to an off-Broadway run. Fales first performed Confessions in Portland last November as a staged reading to benefit Basic Rights Oregon. In January he moved to Clackamas to live with his partner, Jared Ivie, a fellow Brigham Young University alumnus who shares many of Fales’ experiences with the Mor mon Church. The two met at a national confer ence for Affirmation, a queer Mormon support group, and now are engaged to he married. Which is a long way away from living the prescribed American Mormon dream in Utah. “Being a gay Mormon, trying to he straight— that wasn’t who I was," says Fales. “Putting on that Mormon smile, hut inside feeling like I’m a phony, like I’m a fake, not having any full self-expression to express that part of me— you stop smiling.” As a teen-ager, Fales questioned his sexuality more than once. “I felt the weight of having to pretend way early.... One of my favorite things to do growing up was to watch the Donny and Mane show. While most boys my age wanted to he Donny (or) marry Marie, I wanted to marry Donny and he Marie.” But Fales was firmly instmeted that homo sexuality doesn’t really exist within the context of Mormon culture. Rather, “same-gender attraction" is a condition to overcome. “In our religions, we make it wrong, and it doesn’t need to he wrong,” he comments. ver faithful, Fales tried to he straight and, in a strange twist of fate, mar ried the oldest daughter of Mormondom’s leading liter ary light, Carol Lynn Pearson. Pearson’s best-selling memoir, Good-bye, I Love You, tells the story of her Visitors welcome! to Steven Fales’ Confessions of a Mormon Boy May 14 to 2 9 at Hollywood Theatre relationship with her ex-hus band, who also was gay and died of AIDS in her port, he soon fell into a “gay adolescence” that Through writing, he has started healing. home. From the beginning, Fales had been began with a newfound taste for sex, alcohol And helping. “I have seen so many Mormon upfront with his wife about his same-sex attrac and, later, crystal meth. boys in sex work— taking their pain and anger, tions but explains, “My ex-wife, Emily, and I had “I was always an overachiever in other being a victim of it all,” Fales notes. “One of the audacity to think we could write a different things, so I was going to overachieve in this the things that became very clear after this story from her parents.” way, too,” he jokes. “I was panicking but deter course is that you’re nothing you’ve ever done, Fales underwent reparative therapy with mined to survive.... So I had an interview with good or bad.” Joseph Nicolosi, well-known anti-gay author one of the town’s best escorting agencies at That message is at the heart of Confessions, and president of the National Association for midnight and— boom!— I’m in all the pent which he wrote for his kids— to let them know Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. houses in New York: $500 an hour, $2,000 how much he loved them and to have the Nicolosi’s simplistic premise argues that overnight. I’m not wearing Payless shoes any opportunity to relate the story of his absent fathers and overbearing mothers lead to more— I’m buying Prada.” transformation in his own words. Telling his a fractured masculinity that causes homosexual But then life got darker and darker, he says, experiences with warmth and humor, Fales ity. Fales was told to distance himself from his because once again he was pretending. “Sex says he strives to illuminate the dilemma of mother, leading him to write a scathing letter to work is another pretense. You’re selling your those struggling to reconcile their dreams of affections— the becoming straight with the realities of being most human thing gay and what it costs to accept or deny that you have.” truth, especially when children are involved. — The freedom “The play is a valentine to Mormonism and he worked so my escorting past,” he says. “ I’m in a unique hard to get sud position. I don’t fit the stereotypes, although I denly felt worth could define both groups externally. The Mor . less. He tried giv mons kicked me out for being gay, and the gay ing up drugs and scene doesn’t quite know how to react to a the sex once— father of two.” her demanding that she stay out of his and his cold turkey. But 9/11 hit, and life again In that regard, Fales notes: “The play chal son’s life. (He was convinced she would influ became desperate. lenges the ultra-right and the ultra-left. I guess ence his son’s sexuality, too.) that’s why the play seems to speak to so many, “I had done all this reparative therapy and phone call one day from old friends con gay or straight.” JH tried to he straight, and I realized I was not vinced Fales to attend one of those week- going to be smiling the rest of my life," reveals 1end courses promising to change one’s life. C onfessions of a M ormon B oy ploys Fales. “So, I started to explore what that was And, for Fales at least, it did. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays from May 14 to behind my wife’s back, and I was very out of “I had this huge aha! ...I was looking for 29 and 2 p.m. May 23 at Hoiiymxxi Theatre, integrity in my marriage, anti when I came my father’s love and money in the penthouses 4122 N .E . Sandy Blvd. Tickets are $15 from the clean to her, it all blew up.” of New York. I was being a victim of the theater, Gai-Pied or uAwu.ticketweb.com. Fales’ swift excommunication, divorce and church of all these different things. I had this abandonment pushed him to New York to start huge awakening, and I never went hack to sex TIMOTHY K rause is communicatitms coordinator over. Both without financial and family sup- work after that,” he says. for City Club of Portland. “I had an interview with one of the town's best escorting agencies...and boom!—Pm in all the penthouses in New York: $500 an hour, $2,000 overnight Tm not wearing Payless shoes anymore—Tm buying Prada ” TABOO ADOLT VIDEO DVD VIDEO MAGAZINES TOYS MULTI-CHANNEL ARCADE WITH VOYEUR G LA S S PORTLAND 237 S.E. 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