Theatre in Review: Hit the Wall (Barrow Street Theatre)

	Photo: Matthew Murphy

Hit the Wall wants to offer a wide-angle view of the Stonewall Riots, the series of events enshrined in legend as the beginning of the modern gay rights movement -- in a tiny space with a dozen actors and a running time of 90 minutes. It's a tall order, and the result is more like the Reader's Digest version of epic theatre than the real thing, although the playwright, Ike Holter, certainly has a way with words -- especially when his characters are unleashing colorful cataracts of invective or delivering stirring orations of self-affirmation.

Still, there's a reason why this historic event -- the police raid on a mobbed-up gay bar that ended in chaos when the patrons, for the first time, fought back at the police who routinely harassed them -- has so rarely been portrayed on stage. (I suppose the most famous attempt was Doric Wilson's Street Theater, which had a certain vogue 30 years ago.) Its action is too sprawling, its cast of characters too diverse, its causes too complex to be encapsulated in a conventional dramatic format. Holter's ambition is admirable, but he tries to cover far too many bases; the result is often one-dimensional and shrill, history told in comic-book terms.

In order to cram in the greatest number of viewpoints, Holter builds his story around a series of odd-couple pairings, the least likely of which involves Carson, a black drag queen, dressed in fabulous mourning, and Cliff, a young, sexually confused draft resister who, as dressed by the costume designer David Hyman, looks like the winner of a John Lennon lookalike contest. They meet outside Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home, where Judy Garland lies in state. (Holter, who traffics more in myths than hard facts, clings to the now-discredited notion that the riots were ignited by grief over Garland's death.) "I'm worried about Liza," murmurs Carson, in what may be the most unintentionally hilarious line of the season. Their romance is sealed when Cliff offers to sneak Carson, in full drag, into the singer's wake. Their female counterparts are Roberta and Peg. Roberta ("I don't call myself a lesbian; I call myself a dyke.") has been thrown out of the feminist movement. (This was the era when Betty Friedan warned of "the lesbian menace.") Peg is an old-fashioned butch who, despite her masculine wardrobe -- she wears a heavy denim jacket in 100° heat -- isn't nearly as tough as she looks.

The rest of the characters are like delegates at a convention. Representing the minority viewpoint are Mika and Tano, uptown gays of color, who occupy a Christopher Street stoop, from which they offer cutting commentary while ogling the passing males; speaking for the younger generation is Newbie, a clean-cut adolescent from outside the city; and from the mainstream, there's A-Gay, a square-jawed, closeted Mad Men-type, whose hard-sell pickup manner, complete with a 60-minute time limit and directions to his brownstone, is one of Holter's best inventions. Representing the forces of oppression are Alex, a cop who specializes in entrapment, and Madeline, Peg's prim sister, who is disgusted by all things homosexual.

Holter throws everyone together and sends them into the Stonewall for a bacchanalian dance sequence that doesn't make very much sense. (Would A-Gay really be frugging the night away in a downmarket joint loaded with blacks and Latinos?) Soon, the police show up, leading to a luridly melodramatic and thoroughly exploitative sequence in which Carson and Peg are humiliated and sexually molested by Alex, until one of them seizes the cop's gun and the tables are brutally turned. This doesn't stop Holter from including a scene in which Carson, still in drag but minus his wig, has a screaming fit on the street. At times, the author seems as intent as the cops when it comes to stripping his characters of their dignity.

Hit the Wall is shot through with snappy, often hilarious, dialogue, and a keen appreciation of the many divisions inside the gay community. Roberta's feminist aria includes the explicit warning "Do not trust the gays," indicating the long-running distrust between male and female homosexuals. An encounter between Alex and Peg -- he thinks he's picking up a gay mark and is stunned to realize she isn't a man -- bristles with menace. A-Gay's panicked reaction to the riots -- he accuses Tano and his cohort of ruining everything for straight-acting, straight-appearing guys like him -- is a neat way of showing how cornered he suddenly feels. But other scenes -- particularly the sisterly confrontation in which Roberta, speaking for their entire family, disowns Peg -- are pure hysterical melodrama.

The standouts in the uniformly excellent cast include Nathan Lee Graham as the fabulous, but frightened, Carson; Gregory Haney as the finger-snapping Mika; Sean Allan Krill as the ultra-masculine A-Gay; Rania Salem Manganaro as the defiant, yet unsure, Peg; and Carolyn Michelle Smith as the radiant Roberta. The director, Eric Hoff, clearly has a way with his diverse cast. The neatly done production design includes a small playing area surrounded by the audience, with the entrance to the Stonewall in a corner, all designed by Lauren Helpern. Keith Parham's lighting takes us through the day and moves us from outdoor sunlight to the dark, smoky confines of the Stonewall. David Hyman's costumes do well by the various characters. The sound design, by Daniel Kluger and Brandon Wolcott, includes such appropriate musical selections as Judy Garland singing "Get Happy" and the sounds of rioting and also provides solid reinforcement for the on-stage band.

There's a lot of energy at the Barrow Street Theatre, informed by very real passion. But in trying to say so many things, Holter shortchanges them. The best account of these events remains the 2010 documentary film Stonewall Uprising, which gives you a vivid, minute-by-minute sense of how things went down. Hit the Wall is a history play, but in the telling it comes across as pure pulp fiction.--David Barbour