l;,_.~,.‘.

. -..,~ \-, ... ...,.._~.,.. -«-rxs -«.‘ A.‘- . -« g.

  

P .    A  

Plau is a Powerful  

 

Execution of Historu

Execution of justice, a review by Cathu Resmer

n November 27th, 1978,
0 Harvey Milk and San

Francisco mayor George
Moscone were assassinated. A
gay rights activist and member
of the San Francisco Board of
Supervisors, Milk was the first
openly gay person elected to US
office. 4‘ ,

A week after the 20th
anniversary of Harvey Milk’s
death, I was talking to some stu-
dents. at the University of
Vermont. Milk’s name came up.
“Who’s Harvey Milk?” someone
said. One of the other students
spoke up. “He did something in
San Francisco,” she said. “He
was in the government, and he
and his aide were killed.”

alking to Claudio Medeiros,
Twho directed the Middle-

’ bury College production of
Execution of Justice, Emily
Mann’s play about the trial and
the events following the assassi-
nation, I realized that -ignorance
of Milk’s story is not uncom-
mon. “I would say most people
in the audience — probably 75
percent of them — had never
heard of Harvey Milk,” says the
director and Middlebury College
grad. Even the cast, he says,
needed a refresher course in
recent political history.

“One ofthe first things we did
after reading the script was that
everybody watched the docu-
mentary The Times of Harvey
Milk. My cast, regardless of their
own personal orientations, was
not only incredibly moved, but
some ofthem were, in fact, angry
because they had never heard of
him. They were asking, ‘Why
don’t we know about this?’”

Medeiros', who got his B.A.

Hltlil Pl’lC8 (IBM nortrayed Dan White and Sam Elmore was |llS|!80t0l' frank Fallon

\

ill 3 play about “IE lI‘i8l Oi Harvey Mll|('8 llll||‘Il8l'8I'.

in Theatre from Middlebury in
1990, is pursuing his Ph.D. at the
University of California at
Berkeley. He was in residence at
Middlebury during the fall tenn.
Execution was the product of his
residency. We spoke over the
phone on his last day in
Vermont, a week after the end of
the play’s three—day, four-show
run.

Medeiros says he felt it was
important to direct a gay-themed
work at Middlebury, especially
in light of the national climate
toward the queer community,
and in particular because of
recent anti—gay incidents at the
college. The production also
held personal significance for
Medeiros. “I was very isolated
when I was a student here,” he
says, and the production “was a
reaction to my own experience at
Middlebury.”

Medeiros is quick to point out
that both he, and Middlebury,
have changed since he was a stu-
dent. “When I came back,” he
says, “I found a group‘of 26 stu-
dents who embraced me, and
this message, wholeheartedly. It
was such an incredible lesson.”
The play was also a lesson to its
audience. ‘‘I had grandmothers
of actors come and talk to me
about how much they enjoyed
it,” says the director.

Execution of Justice, written
in 1982, and first produced in
1984, garnered the HBO New
Plays USA Award, and the Bay
Area Critics Circle Award,
among others. Most of the text
emerges directly from the tran-
scripts of the trial of Dan White
(the Board of Supervisors‘mem-
ber who killed both Milk and
Moscone), and from interviews

conducted shortly after the
killing. As in most legal dramas,
the dialogue tends to be dense
and difficult to follow at times.

Medeiros, gowever, did an
excellentjob o staging the play;
the transitions between scenes
were precise and electrifying.
The cast was also engaging, and
did a remarkable job of portray-
ing the humanity of both the
killer and the outraged commu-
nity that mourned his victims.

I was particularly moved by
the riot scene that ensued after
the verdict — a sentence of vol-
untary manslaughter rather than
the recommended first-degree
murder — was read. Scenes of a
burning city played across a
video screen behind an angry
mob that screamed at the audi-
ence, “We want justice!” The
intensity of the performance was
terrifying; it seemed as if no one
was acting.

Perhaps the actors drew on
outrage they might have felt over
the death of Matthew Shepard,
or perhaps they were motivated
by the anger they might have
felt at their own ignorance of
these crucial events in our
nation’s history. Whatever their
motivation, it worked.

There were a number of
notable performances: Meg
Taintor as Gwenn Craig, Rich
Price as Dan White, both of the
attorneys (Alex Cranmer and
Clark Freeman), Peter
Makrauer as the D.A., and
Steve Waltien as Sister Boom
Boom, a very believable and
often frightening nun in drag.

I was especially impressed
with the way Medeiros and his
cast were able to make this play
a living, breathing-down-your-

“Some of them

were, in tact,    
eheeause they had
never heard of   ‘

The

isxgt 

‘vs

W 
£4

 

 

 

 

$5»

Ale Cranmer (standinuiahd clarli Freema ayed the
attorneys in the Middlebury college production.

throat entity. Watching it was a
creepy experience. At one point,
I was empathizing with Dan
White. Minutes later, I was
wrapped up _in the rage of an
angry mob. For the first time in
my life, I felt a visceral reaction
to the threat of anti-gay vio-
lence. It seemed nearer to me
than it had before. People who
had been names became faces,

I and “the queer community,”

which often seems large but
faceless, became manifest in the
diverse mob of angry people on
stage.

Afterwards, I wanted to talk
about it with anyone who would
listen. “I keep hearing that it
generated discussion,” says
Medeiros. “Students have said
that after seeing it they went
home and had to talk about it.”
For a generation that was born
too late to remember the man
who said, “If a bullet should
enter my brain, let that bullet
shatter every closet door,” this
production was a powerful histo-
ry lesson. V