Thoughts

“We have an honorable history in the world of men and women. We seek to give expression to that thing that beats inside us, that pulsating muscle of indelible passion that informs our intellect. Theater is the spiritual fist of the culture. An intelligent, responsible fist of fierce purpose that is searching for tools to build institutions…to build palaces for our art.”

-August Wilson at the National Black Theater Festival, 1997

Lately, I've been having a dialogue with myself.

In my August Wilson class, we are constantly reading things about the importance of a distinct black culture and black theatre scene with the purpose of celebrating heritage and culture, and I think to myself, is queer culture driven by this same purpose to create a queer theatre similar in scope and purpose?

I'm a generally quiet person, ready to make it known that I'm proud of all of the facets that make up my self but at the same time humble and unassuming. It has for the most part been my opinion that if queer people lead lives that parallel those of heterosexuals (we do, in the end, have many of the same basic human needs and wants), the lines dividing our population into queer and straight would disintegrate over time. But, reading about the struggles and triumphs of black culture, I can't help but think that perhaps we need a similar push away from heteronormativity and toward a more reactionist queer theatre separate unto itself.

Of course, we do, in effect, have a queer theatre, populated by playwrights like Tony Kushner, Martin Sherman, Larry Kramer, Mark Ravenhill, and others, but do we have a unified purpose? Are there, in effect, vital, well-focused "queer theatres" out there focused around the sole purpose of producing queer works? And should there be? Do black theatres or Asian theatres or Hispanic theatres even have a unified purpose? Certainly there are artistic differences within each of these communities.

It's all so complicated, but it's certainly a question worth asking and one that I alone can't answer.