Two Artists Take Stock
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         His early countercultural years are gloriously detailed in this memoir, Impresario of Castro Street, but even more fun are his ribald anecdotes of the camp extravaganzas he produced at the Castro Theatre featuring trashy movies and aging movie stars, accentuated by drag queens and kitsch galore. Huestis worships divas and revels in behind-the-scenes gossip of his more than fifty productions over the past twenty years. Lavish spectacles celebrating Ann Miller, Jane Russell, Debbie Reynolds, Patty Duke, Tony Curtis, and John Waters are breathlessly celebrated. Dirt is heartily dished on “drunken” Sandra Dee, “crazy” Karen Black, “damaged” Christina Crawford, and others. Betwixt and between celebrity tales are poignant reminiscences of coming to terms with his dying mother and lost brother. Huestis also writes unsparingly about his battle with meth-infused sexcapades, in stark contrast to the glitz and glamor of his flamboyant showbiz persona. After seventeen years on the “crystal merry-go-round,” he went cold turkey and also stopped having sex.

         Today Huestis lives in a small cabin near Lake Tahoe, ready for whatever his third act in life will bring. His iconoclastic life journey embodies the zeitgeist of San Francisco’s LGBT history over the last fifty years, and his resiliency is powerfully affirming—a must read for aficionados of cultural and queer studies.

As an emerging artist in the New York avant-garde performance scene of the 1980’s, Jeff McMahon was immensely appealing. His long-limbed, supple style of movement, amplified by his adroit interjection of language and metaphor, garnered him grants, commissions, and performance tours. From the outset, he was multi-disciplinary, making Super-8 films of other downtown dancers and incorporating visuals into his stage performances. Like many in his generation, he is now housed within academia. Since 2001, he has been teaching at Arizona State University in the School of Film, Dance, and Theatre. As an artist, this has allowed him to continue developing his socially conscious, queer, and politically charged æsthetic.

         This collection, Six Monologues 1990-2007, part of NoPassport Press’s “Dreaming the Americas” series, documents McMahon’s growth as a solo performer/writer. His earliest work unpacks privilege, race, masculinity, and the social norms of success. Anti-war polemics, queer identity, 9/11, police killings, and erudite memory plays document the ever-increasing complexity of his later existential narratives. In this compilation, the maturation and mastery of an authentic agitprop sensibility is evident. Most potent is his “City of God” (1993), a tale about an early boyfriend, finding his artistic voice, surviving amid the detritus of the pandemic, and the decline of aging.

         McMahon’s finely honed poetics and vibrant histories add much to the literature of political resistance. His words are beautiful, his politics fierce, his craft singular—the kind of artist that’s needed in these profane times. In recent years, he has increasingly utilized online platforms with films, and he has collaborated on a web-based series, in addition to his theatrical work. However, this essential collection of his solo performance writing is a clarion call to other contemporary artists of the necessity to bear witness.