DV8: To Be Straight With You
San Francisco

Where do I begin?

When something starts with the above sentence, it can only mean one of two things: It was either great or it was terrible.

I have an avid interest in theater, but do not have strong political views on gay rights, and neither am I an activist, although the recent brouhaha on California's Proposition 8 makes San Francisco culturally relevant for such a play. When I saw the blurb on To Be Straight With You, I was intrigued. A picture of an actor skipping rope can catch your attention, but what really caught mine was a blackboard with writing on the wall. My interest piqued, I bought a ticket.

I arrived early, and at the entrance saw 2 men dressed in drag. For a moment, I thought they were actors in the play and I was disappointed. I did not drive 57 miles for a loud, gay rights in your face spiel. Nevertheless, I settled into my seat on the first row, and was intrigued by the director's narrative in the playbill-- on his experience in a gay parade, and his desire to create a play. This play is verbatim theater-- every word spoken in the play is from an interview with a person on the issue. A lot of them anonymous. How does one translate words into theater?

The play starts with a Rasta guy center stage, saying something-- and it takes a me little time to get used to the accent. And then the experience started. An actor would be writing on the blackboard--strong language, slurs-- while another would be narrating his/her experience, front and center, in a pool of light. Your brain is bombarded with multiple forms of communication, and you don't quite know where to look to absorb it all in, it's almost like your peripheral senses kick into high gear. Even though words like Jesus, Sin, Kill, BLOODY are written on the blackboard, you are not offended. All the actors were dressed in simple daily fare-- jeans and t-shirt, dress pants and shirt, well used shoes.. representing people from various ethnicities and cultures. After a few scenes, the actors moved back a little, the stage went dark, the writing on the wall popped in its fluorescent glory, and... the blackboard receded. And I went Aha! A translucent screen was lowered where they started flashing images. There is one particular scene where the actor is interacting with a rotating globe, the rest of the screen black, pointing out countries where homosexuality is punishable with the death penalty, marking them with a red 'x'; he physically separates out the continents putting an ocean in between them with the swipe of his hand. A emphatic visual view of where the world lies in its view on gay rights. At this point, one might worry that the experience will be overtaken by technology, but that doesn't happen. The creativity and subtlety of how multimedia is used in this play is to be commended. Actors sitting behind this screen, have light shining on their faces while their bodies are black. It is almost like a finger tip moves across the screen, creating light, so you see the body behind, or painting it black, hiding what's behind. Parts exposed. Parts hidden. Like delving into the psyche.

At this point, I'm in awe at the amount of creativity this production is exhibiting by the minute. The stories being told are graphic, but low key.. it is the voice of a narrative, a regular person next door. An Iraqi doctor gets stripped on stage down to his underwear, his white t-shirt pulled over his head in a dark alley, a noose around his neck, he gets kicked and beaten. KuKlux flashes in your memory. As he continues to tell his story, the attackers disappear, he picks himself up and nonchalantly puts his clothes back on, along with the white coat that is the mark of a doctor. An experience in his life. A lesbian couple leave the country-- on the run from a traumatic experience. One woman tells you about a woman getting raped with a beer bottle. On stage one guy holds this lean lesbian woman in dreadlocks by the scruff of her neck, up against the wall, her feet 2 feet above the ground, and when she is released her nose is bloody. While all of this is brutally graphic, somehow the violence doesn't shock me. I wonder and worry that perhaps I have been desensitized to others' pain. Where is my compassion?

Different people talk about their experiences of coming out of the closet. Of being gay. Most speak in anonymity, worried about the backlash from their respective communities.

A question is asked repeatedly: Are you Muslim or are you gay? One man says he is a devout Muslim, he reads the Koran and prays 5 times a day. He is gay. Can he be one without the other? It is his identity. The Koran says a homosexual cannot be a Muslim... but he prays and is religious. This interaction stayed with me. Empathy is when you find a parallel in yourself. What parts of my identity can I separate? Can I be a heterosexual OR a Hindu? Can I be a female OR a daughter? There is no choice here. It just IS.

The most amazing facet of the play is that it does not state that homosexuality is right or wrong. It just presents different points of view. On religion. Bigotry. Intolerance. Up. Down. Left. Right. It is up to you what you do with it.

In one scene a Muslim Pakistani man skips the entire scene while narrating his story. Yes, he jumps rope the entire scene. First you are amazed at his skill, and I wonder how he is able to talk through it all-- his heartbeat has to have gone up, but his voice stays level, no sweat on his brow, brisk footwork. His shoes have been there before. Then you start listening to the words, the skillful skipping an aside, and at the same time not an aside. He talks about coming out of the closet to his conservative father who doesn't accept his homosexuality, chases him down... and stabs him... a slumping figure against the writing on the wall. Chalk erased. Dim light.

Did you get that? His father.

While I continue to stay amazed at the creativity of the play, I then start focusing on the actors, their hand movements, the perfect body movements, their dance. One scene has two men facing each other, their faces separated by inches, bodies not touching. It is not clear whether they are lovers, but they do this dance where their heads move left to right alternating, almost making them look like one. I feel uncomfortable. At how close they are. At the violation of personal space.

A guy in a box structure with a glass front, a DJ, playing music. I don't remember the details. Just the blue light, strobe, a regular guy playing an LP. Graphic lyrics flashing.

A confession cell. Broken souls. Pain. Lovers.

Audio from a BBC world service news report. Relevance. Live, if you will.

A scene with chairs. A priest giving his point of view. Other people on chairs. Actors sit, stand, stand on the chair, get back down, people facing each other. Chairs get moved. Tapping Feet. It feels like an orchestra. Keys on a piano. They go up. They go down. Fine tuned. Coordinated. You take in the visual, while the words find their way into you.

This is nothing like I've ever seen before. This is not something money can buy, like some of the glitz in some Broadway shows. This play is mind blowing and leaves you with a feeling of awe. The creativity. The set. The skill. The acting. The idea. Voices. Lighting. Movement. Subtle images. Communication. And then it hits me!

It's brilliance is not in any of the above! The true brilliance of this play is on it's effect on your subconscious, where the message gets to you subliminally... leaving you to process it's aftermath.

I almost NEED to see it again. To catch all that I've missed. A second rev through my brain. I'd recommend you see it at least once.


ps: the men in drag do not show up on stage.
pps: I become aware of the pun on 'DV8' much later!