San Francisco Sentinel
Theatre
January 11, 1990
Men, Lesbians and Transsexuals
By Doris Fish, Sentinel Arts Writer
Joke about AIDS will never be a real trend, but I hope the nineties will bring some humor to our dastardly situation. We loved and laughed at “Terms of Endearment” and “Steel Magnolias” (even at the funeral!), and I know some laughed at “Men in Love”, the new gay film at the Roxie, but it was not because the film is funny but because it is embarrassingly unfunny.
It’s relentlessly sincere, and sincerity has always been a problem for me. As an actress, portraying sincerity is close to impossible. I know better than even to attempt it, so to sit through 90 minutes of non-professional actors oozing sincerity is quite disturbing.
Actually, the early scenes in San Francisco with Lulu and friends are rather good, but once we get to Maui, and that “Maui Family” shit, it’s just cringe time. I really wanted to like the film; I love Marc Heustis and Maui, and Fawn Yacker’s cinematography is virtually flawless. Plus, I’m a big supporter of all those New Age ideas (the only crystals I own are on the chandelier and none of my past lives could ever be as glamorous as my current one, but still, I do believe in it all!). But after viewing the film I felt it put the new age movement back ten years. My fellow writer John Karr (yes, he does write for the other paper) expressed my own feelings exactly when he wrote, “I wanted to take drugs and knock down old ladies!”
The character who is the spokesperson for the “Maui Family”, Robert, portrayed by Emerald Star, is by far the most annoying. Though this character has real potential to be a fabulous psychopathic serial killer, he’s just a boring creep, smiling all the time because he’s just so fucking wise. With his ‘70s perm and eyeliner he really made my flesh crawl, causing me to pray during the hot tub scene, “oh, please God don’t let me see this asshole’s asshole!” I covered my eyes for extra protection.
Some of the flesh in “Men in Love” is a delight to see. The “ideal couple” are physically pleasant though vacuous to the extreme. Joe Tolbe is not only pleasant to look at but is really the only one who does manage to give the Maui lifestyle some validity. His character is sweet and actually does work, digging things or something. I think they all live on a farm though no one else does anything. And the main actor Doug Self is really pretty good, pulling off some tricky acting moments and basically holding the whole thing together.
“Men in Love” deals with sophisticated emotions and ideas. Unfortunately, they require sophisticated performers to sell them. The very philosophies the film is promoting are ridiculed and their practitioners look like naïve fools, though very sincere. New Age skeptics will not be won over, and the rest of us will just have to look elsewhere. Why didn’t they just make a pornographic film documenting these Tantric sex tricks, though it seems to be a lot of staring and rocking.
Speaking of looking elsewhere, Kate Bornstein’s play “Hidden: A Gender” also deals with sophisticated ideas but happily is quite hilarious. A “straight” man has a sex change to become a lesbian is the story line, and Kate has been on “Geraldo” (and managed not to be a victim), so how she maintains such humor about her life without trivializing it is remarkable. The format is clever, with the author not playing herself but rather the antagonists of the story in vignettes and skits.
Hardly a laughing matter, yet Ms. Bornstein hits between the eyes (and often below the belt) with provocative humor. The jokes and the terrific performances by Bornstein, Sydney Erskine, and especially Justin Bond as the poignant Herculine, make a fascinating subject very entertaining. Earnest, turgid monologues are kept to a minimum, while the most important issues are cleverly exposed via rollicking skits and one-liners.
Transsexualism is one of the least understood phenomena of the human experience, and it behooves us to educate ourselves on the subject. “Hidden: A Gender” has just started its second run (with 15 minutes trimmed) in the studio at Theatre Rhino.
Telling a tale with humor is so much more effective than well-meaning melodrama. Finding the laughs in Kate’s life is a little easier as it has a happy ending. (Though Dorothy Parker said, “No one’s life has a happy ending.”). Maybe one day we’ll look back on these days of AIDS and death and find something to laugh about.
