The power of the theatre is limitless in its ability to educate, entertain, and enlighten. What transpires on the stage often tickles us, sometimes depresses us, and maybe even infuriates us, possibly resulting in profound catharsis or potent self-revelation. But does the synergy created between theatre artists and theatre audiences have the potential to heal?
More than two decades ago, AIDS entered my life with a cyclonic intensity that might have paralyzed me artistically, emotionally, and physically. Where could I channel the overlapping feelings of anger, helplessness, confusion, sadness, and fear?
Yes, the theatre, where I would seek sanctuary in a world rendered hopeless by inhumanity. Some were beckoned by the sound of church bells; the proverbial "roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd" led me.
In the early 1980s the theatre was virtually the only medium available for those of us who needed to unleash our escalating emotions surrounding this inexplicable plague. For innumerable reasons—including homophobia, racism, and classism—the television and film industries determinedly shied away from such volatile subject matter.
Playwright James Carroll Pickett and I formed the collective Artists Confronting AIDS, in '84, as an impassioned response to the often specious information that was carelessly fed to the public by the news media. Our goal was to humanize the disease by allowing individuals—not necessarily actors—to tell their stories in a theatrical setting, creating a format that no amount of news footage could possibly capture. Not only did AIDS/US appear to infuse the participants with a renewed sense of purpose, it allowed audience members to communally confront their explosive feelings around a loaded issue.
That transformative experience, which I choose to describe as spiritual, provided a blueprint for my unfolding career as a theatre artist. I came to believe that acting, writing, and directing fall into the category of a service occupation, not unlike that of a therapist, a medical doctor, or—dare I say it?—a healer.
I think about this belief as I approach two directorial assignments simultaneously opening next weekend in L.A.: the 20th anniversary production of Robert Chesley's Jerker at Highways Performance Space, and a remounting of The Tina Dance at the Gay & Lesbian Center's Davidson/Valentini Theatre.
When I began to hear about the explosion of crystal methamphetamine use, threatening the lives of gay men in Los Angeles, it reminded me of those nascent AIDS whisperings.
Using the paradigm Pickett and I devised for AIDS/US (and subsequently AIDS/US II and AIDS/US/WOMEN), I found a group of men who were willing to tell their uncensored stories in front of a live audience. The resulting work, The Tina Dance, has the same effect on "cast members" and audience members who participated in AIDS/US: a sense of redemption that results from the fusion of truth-telling and witnessing.
Jerker also leaps off the page and onto the stage in its autobiographical authenticity. I admit that no matter how noisy the greasepaint or redolent the crowd, theatre was unable to save the precious lives of Chesley; the actors in the 1986 premiere, Joe Fraser and David Stebbins; or Pickett. Yet consider how art may have imbued their deaths with a certain clarity, honesty, and grace.
What Jerker did then, and promises to do again, is romantically and graphically document the love and desire that exist in male-male relationships, a human connection that no deadly virus can eradicate.
While I know that it is not wise to sentimentalize or make dramatic pronouncements about the healing components of art, I can tell you that the theatre has been a balm to my soul. While others may question whether or not its magic has extended my life, on and off the stage, I do not.
Michael Kearns is a theatre artist with a 30-year-plus track record. His website is www.michaelkearns.net. "The Tina Dance" opens Aug. 3; "Jerker" opens Aug. 4.