Frank, even as he shamelessly flirts with his prey, emasculating
Frank in the process:
Frank: You know, you’re not worth talkin’ to.
Jay: So? I do all the talking.
Frank: You know, you’re in love with yourself.
Jay: Jealous?
Frank: You make me furious!
Jay: It works!
Frank: What works?
Jay: Jiu-jitsu; using the other fellow’s weight against him.
“Queered” language becomes both literally and figuratively rev-
olutionary, as Patrick’s circular meanings shake up conventional
relations of power. By subverting ordinary language, Patrick
opens a space for social transformation, whether or not the play
catalyzes subsequent concrete political action. Indeed, many of
Jay’s words work to “queer” the audience’s conception of real-
ity. Consider the following passage:
Frank: You’re evading my question!
Jay: No, I’m ignoring it!
Frank:
Are
you a homosexual?
Jay: I’m
the
homosexual!
Frank: Now, look—
Jay: You look! There’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask
someone.
Frank: What is it?
Jay: I hope you won’t be offended.
Frank: Well, what? No, of course not. What?
Jay: Well—you’re heterosexual, aren’t you?
Frank: Sure!
Jay: Now, don’t get angry, I’m only satisfying my curiosity—
or perhaps I should say I’m satisfying only my curiosity—
Frank: Oh, come on –
Jay: Tell me, Frank, how long have you
been
heterosexual?
Frank: What do you mean? I’ve
always
been heterosexual!
Jay: Started as a kid, huh? Tsk-tsk. Tell me, do you think one
of your teachers, or possibly even one of your parents might
have been heterosexual? Do you think that might have been
the reason you—
Frank: (
interrupting
) All right, all right, just shut up, okay?
Jay: Okay, Frank. Gee, I didn’t think you’d be so touchy about
it. Wow. (
Brief pause
) Tell me, is your play heterosexual?
Frank: (
Snappy
) You mean does it sleep with plays of the op-
posite sex?
Jay: (
delighted to have drawn wit
) Oooo. Getting off, ain’tcha?
Well, you know, you people
do
tend to let heterosexuality
creep
into all your work.
By reversing the presumption of heterosexuality as original
truth, and putting the “straight man” in a position in which he
must explain his “foreign” sexuality to a gay man, the play-
wright uses language to undermine the heterosexist perception
of reality. In this passage, homophobia and heterosexism are
held up to the light, demanding further consideration. This move
would have been quite affirming in a society in which gay peo-
ple were frequently arrested for merely appearing in public.
Patrick’s queer theater contributed to a nascent sense of “gay
liberation” by promoting visibility, destabilizing normative so-
cial constructs, providing a template for individual self-em-
powerment, and exposing oppression.
In the play, the hustler repeatedly attempts to induce Jay to
read and find a venue for his script, but Jay refuses to even
glance at it, preferring to use it as a footstool or resting place for
his coffee mug. By representing theater-making as a battle of
the wills, Patrick claims the stage as a valuable tool in the po-
litical arsenal. His play implies that visibility is the first step in
acquiring not only social acceptance but also an inner sense of
power. In the world of Patrick’s play, creative resistance leads
to the realization of a gay man’s robust and virile self-concep-
tion. By using theater to “come out” into an alternative society,
Jay empowers himself to move beyond his mourning. This lit-
eral “coming out” of the self is perhaps facilitated best by the
stage. Perhaps the most elemental form of queer theater, this
“coming out” process, the revealing of oneself though mutual
witnessing, enables Jay to give birth to his own truest self, a
type of theatrical “procreation.” A revealing of self happens, fit-
tingly, through his creative writing, an alchemy in which art im-
itates life and vice versa.
Jay’s redemption depends on his sense of self-esteem and
artistic talent as well as on his network of comrades, who pro-
vide him with a feeling of queer kinship. In my conversations
with him, Patrick has often fondly reminisced about the gay fra-
ternity that he found at the Cino. An ephemeral utopia for
Patrick and his friends, the Cino was nevertheless a place where
numerous relationships were built, and where gay artists could
find the camaraderie that affirmed their common interests, per-
spectives, and sexual desires. At the Cino, artistic creation
served as the medium through which social life flourished.
Consider these words from Jay’s opening monologue, as he
reflects on a tacky, mass-produced Kandinsky print that he has
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