Samhain Christmas Moon
We saw the last of the Brother/Sister trilogy yesterday afternoon at Curious Theater, “No guts, no story.” Marcus, the Secret of Sweet. This trilogy, which used Yoruba mythology heavily in its first two plays, lightens up on that in the last one. It is a complex story, one I’d need to see the whole again to piece it together with any confidence, but the trilogy gives the background, both cultural and mythic, to the coming of age of a young gay black man in Louisiana.
Though uneven at times in the first two plays, this last play stays focused and gets at the multiple challenges of being different in a community already oppressed for difference. The trilogy is about outliers, about the challenges that face them in daily life, about the deep mythos that can ground them, but often doesn’t.
Sexuality is, at best, a confused and highly charged aspect of human life. And, that’s for the normative heterosexual experience. Move into the homoerotic and the layering of doubts, fears, joys, ecstasies increase. Place that in a southern Christian African-American community, a community with the history of enslavement as yet another force pushing sexuality to the margins and the burden on one young boy is immense.
If you get the chance to see these plays, this drama and this playwright will open your mind and your heart.