just hung in place of an old photo of Ed, symbolizing art’s heal-
ing ability both to express and to salve human loss. To Jay, as
ugly as it is, the print embodies art’s power to create community.
Speaking to both Ed and the audience, Jay says:
Just
because
it bores you, because it
is
a strange way of feel-
ing forced on you from outside ... just possibly it might help
you get out of yourself for a minute. ... We are such a crowd,
every one of us; so much of us is other people that have come
at us all our lives like—
cookie cutters!
—that only some con-
stant kind of openness, availability, can let in enough ideas to
help us even begin to determine who in Hell we are. Who on
earth
we are. Who in
Heaven
we are!
The device of the Kandinsky print allows Patrick to outline a
theory of the function of theatrical representation: it creates both
society and self. Jay’s self-actualizing performance enables us
to come together as a community that stands apart from the
“cookie-cutter crowd.” By manifesting this openness, the visi-
bility that art engenders generates the community it simultane-
ously addresses. Between the lines, the passage articulates a
theory of art and society, and spawns both in the process.
The Kandinsky painting also symbolizes the power of art in
the lives of the marginalized. Whether it bores or shocks, that
“strange way of feeling imposed on you from the outside” enables
spectators to connect with each other. In Patrick’s world view, art
acts as a mediator between isolation and participation. In this
monologue, which can be read as a plea for the audience to “come
out” to one another, self-knowledge and group identity are intri-
cately interconnected. For Patrick, this vision of individuals linked
through art is ultimately and defiantly utopian: one must partici-
pate in order to have knowledge of “Who in
Heaven
we are!”
Originally staged in the Cino’s small space, the two main
characters are akin to the animals in a cockfight, each strutting
his stuff and attempting to gain the upper hand, surrounded by
an eagerly attentive crowd. This ability of the stage to make the
private public is what gives theater the ability to reshape soci-
ety. Seeing themselves reflected in what transpires before them,
spectators in turn begin to envision their own hidden lives as
taking place within a larger public sphere, a commonly shared
queer culture. These “staged” moments acted as catalysts for
shared consciousness and subsequent public action, insofar as
they publicly affirmed these otherwise “closeted” or “private”
identities. The stage is inherently a site of ritual, which is what
enables it to perform this social function.
Patrick’s semi-autobiographical novel
Temple Slave
pro-
vides anecdotal evidence. In it, there’s a passage (based on an
actual experience Patrick had had while performing as Jay at
the Caffe Cino) in which the performer becomes aware of how
his performance is resonating with the public: “And now that
crowd was my audience, not just my job! We played so close to
them that I rested against a table in one scene. ... I’d noticed a
young gay man at the table opening night. Another night he re-
turned with his parents. During a pause, while Willy looked for
lines, I heard the boy say, ‘you see, Mom? Dad? I’m like that,
I’m a homosexual.’ I felt like an Old Testament prophet.” That
the play provided this boy with a mirror, a role model, a lan-
guage with which to come out to his parents—this was the take-
away for so many young men in search of an identity who
visited the Cino.
At the play’s finale, Jay throws out both the hustler and his
script, thus disposing of the demands of the heterosexual. Vic-
torious, the gay artist here emerges as a creative force with
which to be reckoned, rather than a victim to be pitied. The
writer is left with his own apartment and his own creative pow-
ers. His final action is to dump his dead lover’s writings into
the trash can. In his final phone conversation with Joe-Wanda,
Jay seems poised to move forward, as the interaction with Frank
provided a therapeutic experience and enabled him to exorcize
Ed’s ghost. As instigators of change, then, our relationships help
us develop into fuller people, and it is only through experienc-
ing them in all their joy and pain that we ever get to the other
side of the looking glass. As a venue for these artists, Caffe Cino
did exactly that: it allowed artists and audiences to confront their
ghosts and demons, experience relationships with one another,
develop bonds that enabled a transcendence of self. In doing so,
the Cino’s artists paved the way for the stronger queer commu-
nities and political movements that were to come.
R
eFeRenceS
Chauncey, George.
Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of
the Gay Male world, 1890-1940
. Basic Books, 1994.
Crespy, David A.
off-off Broadway explosion: How Provocative Playwrights
of the 1960’s ignited a New American Theater
. Back Stage Books, 2003.
Patrick, Robert. “The Haunted Host” in
robert Patrick’s Cheep Theatricks:
Plays, Monologues, and Sketches
. Samuel French, Inc., 1972.
Patrick, Robert.
Temple Slave
. Hard Candy Books, 1994.
West, Mae. “The Drag: A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts” in
Three Plays
by Mae west
. Routledge, 1997.
Wilson, Lanford. “The Madness of Lady Bright” in
21 Short Plays
. Smith and
Kraus, 1993.
January–February 2014
21
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