Thursday evening (May 31st) I attended a preview of Electricity– an LGBT ‘comedy drama’ by Ohio nativeTerry Ray presented by Evolution Theatre Company. To say the timing of this is fortuitous is to understate.
The play has two characters who get together one night every 10 years in the same motel room. We learn about how each of them. and their life, changes over the decades from the 10th to the 40th Class of ’73 reunions. Next week I begin the first of two one-week tours of LGBT groups across Ontario; my home province. I will be looking back at my life, and the gay communities I was involved with, over the past 40 plus years.
The play covers as much as two hours allows; a fair warning to me as I prepare for my first event. Filling three hours may sound like a stretch to folks used to 23 minute sitcoms, SMS text messages and tweets. This play, the tv production of When We Rise, and pretty much every movie adaptation ever, has to prioritize characters, story lines and details. The script does a great job of eliminating extraneous details.
We hear only about other characters important to the main focus; Gary and Brad. We do hear about the people. places and events that reveal what the playwright wants. That selective amount of detail is also a blessing for those of us who lived through the early years of the aids onslaught. Not a spoiler to say the subject comes up- but no specifics here.
This is not a review in any traditional sense- I note only that Terry Ray very much embodies his character Gary; to be expected from the creator. The quick discussions of ‘sexual freedom’ and resulting ‘slut shaming’ are quick, and perhaps not noticeable other than to we who live well outside a certain paradigm.
Those are hardly fatal flaws; I strongly encourage my compatriots who lived through those times, and folks who want a peek into them, to go see Electricity, presented by ETC, at the Van Fleet Theatre.
Sat Jun 2, 2018 – 8:00PM – $15/$25/$30
Sun Jun 3, 2018 – 2:00PM – $15/$20/$30
Thu Jun 7, 2018 – 7:30PM – $15/$20/$30
Fri Jun 8, 2018 – 8:00PM – $15/$20/$30
Sat Jun 9, 2018 – 8:00PM – $15/$25/$30
