Dear Mr. McNally,
All I can say is "wow." (Truly I am about to say much more...but overall...just wow). Tonight I had the supreme joy of seeing your new play, Mothers and Sons. And I will get back to that.
The summer between my junior and senior year of high school I was doing community theater with a friend and she was reading a copy of Love! Valour! Compassion! and A Perfect Ganache. I remember the cover was of the guys in their tutus dancing. She told me a bit of what it was about and I knew I had to read it.
I bought Love! Valour! Compassion! on Amazon...the only place a young, closeted gay man in Missouri could get a copy. It is my favorite play in the world. It was the first human and somewhat positive and realistic depiction of homosexuals that appeared relevant to me (as in, not of the Will and Grace persuasion). The characters of Arthur and Perry were the ones that jumped out to me the most. I saw myself in Arthur so much. I remember making my boyfriend read it immediately! I then went on to get a copy of Corpus Christi. It was the published version with Jesus in his underwear...I had to work pretty hard to hide that from my parents. I remember being so enamored of it and that you would have the audacity to write something like that. And I looked it up and saw all the backlash you got and I just knew you were a fearless man. I have since read Lips Together, Teeth Apart (which I did a reading of and almost directed in college), Frankie and Johnny in the Claire De Lune, Master Class, Some Men, A Man of No Importance, and Ragtime. All such beautiful work.
Last summer I had the joy of going to the performing arts library at Lincoln Center and watching the original production of Love! Valour! Compassion! I think I cried through all of it. The part where Bobby, Arthur and Perry are in the car together and Bobby is describing how he imagines them is so perfect; all I aspire to.
Words can't describe how excited I was when I saw that Mothers and Sons was coming to Broadway. It immediately went to the top of my list...I am a struggling writer/director/whatever and my funds are very limited...especially this time of year. But through a very dear mentor I was able to sit fourth row center this evening and see it. And I am forever indebted to him for that. To track the journey of where we as a community have come through the work YOU have written is an amazing thing. The moments that got me in this one were when the three of them were together being a family. When Will sits on the couch talking about how he always knew he wanted to be a dad and the joy he gets from that. It is so tangible to me. I saw myself revealed on a Broadway stage. What an incredibly powerful experience.
I know that I have gone on...and I was I was more well spoken, but the bottom line is that I feel like your work has made me the theatre artist and proud gay man that I am today.
As sincerely as humanly possible,
Michael P. Raymond
P.S. Your Author's Note in Love! Valour! Compassion! is something that I think about almost daily.
No comments:
Post a Comment