Happy Birthday to Me

It has been a good birthday--I took myself to another play this afternoon, "Some Men," a new play by Terrence McNally, a playwright originally from my birth city of Corpus Christi, Texas, well-known as a gay playwright. His best known works include "Love! Valour! Compassion!" and "Master Class." He was also the librettist for the opera "Dead Man Walking" and wrote the book for the musical "Ragtime."

As the promotional material for this play states, "Some Men" charts the course of gay life in America through the varied experience of a group of friends at a wedding. The nine actors played various characters (all gay men) in situations occuring between the years of 1923 and 2007. Throughout we get a sense of the way that things have changed for gay people over the last century.

One scene I particularly enjoyed was two young men ("gender studies majors from Vassar") interviewing two older men about what gay life was like before the Stonewall riots (June 1969). They say that, despite what people might think, they were not miserable in those days; they were happy. And they point out that they didn't fight for their rights because they just didn't know they could. The young men are incredulous--they simply don't understand how they could have been content to live their lives as they did. The juxtaposition of youthful ire with mature wistfulness was interesting.

There was also a great scene in a piano bar, with several show queens one-upping each other on musical theater trivia. LOVED that, of course. It made me want to run to Marie's Crisis or Don't Tell Mama, a couple of the famous piano/show tune bars here in New York. I will definitely put that on the agenda for when Partner arrives.

Now I have to buckle down to studies: the Old Testament mid-term is Wednesday. Prophets, anyone?