Arts & Entertainment
Tale of two Washingtons
Gay theater director opens ‘Race’
The cast of ‘Race,’ director John Vreeke’s latest project. From left, James Whalen, Michael Anthony Williams and Crashonda Edwards.
‘Race’
Through March 17
Theater J
1529 16th Street NW
$15-$60
202-518-9400
washingtondcjcc.org
Maybe six will be a charm. John Vreeke recently received his sixth Helen Hayes Award nomination for outstanding direction. This time it’s for Woolly Mammoth’s critically well-received production of “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.” If Vreeke’s name is ultimately called at the awards ceremony celebrating D.C.-area theater in early April, it will be his first win.
Chatting via phone from his home in Seattle (a little house with a big view of Puget Sound that he shares with his partner of 36 years), Vreeke says he definitely keeps awards in perspective. But despite his philosophical tone, he gives the sense that ending this ongoing non-winning streak wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
As a gay director in his 60s known for tackling intellectually complex plays, Vreeke might have seemed an odd match for “Chad Deity,” an action packed, hip-hop-influenced morality tale set in the world of professional wrestling. But Vreeke was so impressed with playwright Kristoffer Diaz’s distinctive language that he knew it was the right project for him and Woolly’s artistic director Howard Shalwitz agreed.
Vreeke’s prior effort, ‘Chad Deity:’
“I was lucky from the start,” he says. “I worked with a great cast, particularly JJ Perez who’d been waiting to do this play for four years, and an equally good design team.”
Vreeke describes his directorial style as invasive. He understands but doesn’t ascribe to the idea of directors getting out of the way and letting actors do their work.
“Some directors are cheerleaders: They put together the right people and stand back and let them do their thing. That’s not me,” he says. “Early on, I’ll step in with some very strong ideas about concept, scene, character and what play is saying about the world. But I’m not inflexible. Throughout the three-to-five week rehearsal process there is constant evolution and redefinition with lots of discussion. I try to stay very open to who the actors are themselves. After all, that’s primarily how they got the role — I see something in them that connects to the role. Some call it type casting. I call it smart casting.”
Born in the Netherlands, Vreeke (pronounced Vrā-key) was 8 when his family immigrated to the U.S. They settled near an uncle in Salt Lake City and quickly became immersed in a tightly knit, religiously austere Dutch Reformed community. Vreeke knew he was gay from a young age, but understandably kept it to himself. As a teenager, he was a standout actor in his high school’s drama club. “Theater,” he says, “quickly became a form of expression that put issues of sexuality, religion and growing up poor on the back burner.”
After earning his master’s in directing from the University of Utah, Vreeke began his career at Houston’s Alley Theater. Next, he and his partner (a radio executive) moved to Seattle where Vreeke spent five years in television production. From 2000-2009, they lived in D.C. During this time Vreeke returned to theater, mostly directing at Theatre J, MetroStage and Woolly Mammoth (where he’s a company member). And though they are once again based in Seattle, the bulk of Vreeke’s directing projects continue to be here in Washington.
“I can’t seem to give it away in Seattle,” Vreeke says, “but fortunately D.C. keeps asking me back and I’m grateful for that.”
His most recent work — a production of David Mamet’s “Race” currently running at D.C.’s Theater J — examines “guilt, betrayal and racial posturing” in a racially diverse law firm. Written after the formerly liberal playwright’s conversion to neo-conservatism, it’s not quite as nuanced as his earlier works, Vreeke says. “But Mamet’s wonderful economy of writing is there, allowing a director to play the four-person cast as if it were a string quartet. It’s extraordinary.”
This spring Vreeke is staging Michael Hollinger’s otherworldly love story “Ghost-Writer” for MetroStage in Alexandria. In the fall, he’s slated to stage the area premiere of “The Lyons,” Nicky Silver’s comic exploration of family dysfunction at Bethesda’s Roundhouse Theatre, and in 2014 he’s remounting his production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” at Forum Theatre in Silver Spring.
“I think the Washington theater scene is extraordinary, particularly in terms of growth for medium-sized theater and the germination of small theatres like Forum,” Vreeke says. “And I think the best is yet to come. Theater communities go in cycles, and I think D.C. has yet to hit its peak, especially with its new crop of young and talented artistic directors. I hope I can continue to be a part of it.”
Drag artists perform for crowds in towns across Virginia. The photographer follows Gerryatrick, Shenandoah, Climaxx, Emerald Envy among others over eight months as they perform at venues in the Virginia towns of Staunton, Harrisonburg and Fredericksburg.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Books
New book explores homosexuality in ancient cultures
‘Queer Thing About Sin’ explains impact of religious credo in Greece, Rome
‘The Queer Thing About Sin’
By Harry Tanner
c.2025, Bloomsbury
$28/259 pages
Nobody likes you very much.
That’s how it seems sometimes, doesn’t it? Nobody wants to see you around, they don’t want to hear your voice, they can’t stand the thought of your existence and they’d really rather you just go away. It’s infuriating, and in the new book “The Queer Thing About Sin” by Harry Tanner, you’ll see how we got to this point.
When he was a teenager, Harry Tanner says that he thought he “was going to hell.”
For years, he’d been attracted to men and he prayed that it would stop. He asked for help from a lay minister who offered Tanner websites meant to repress his urges, but they weren’t the panacea Tanner hoped for. It wasn’t until he went to college that he found the answers he needed and “stopped fearing God’s retribution.”
Being gay wasn’t a sin. Not ever, but he “still wanted to know why Western culture believed it was for so long.”
Historically, many believe that older men were sexual “mentors” for teenage boys, but Tanner says that in ancient Greece and Rome, same-sex relationships were common between male partners of equal age and between differently-aged pairs, alike. Clarity comes by understanding relationships between husbands and wives then, and careful translation of the word “boy,” to show that age wasn’t a factor, but superiority and inferiority were.
In ancient Athens, queer love was considered to be “noble” but after the Persians sacked Athens, sex between men instead became an acceptable act of aggression aimed at conquered enemies. Raping a male prisoner was encouraged but, “Gay men became symbols of a depraved lack of self-control and abstinence.”
Later Greeks believed that men could turn into women “if they weren’t sufficiently virile.” Biblical interpretations point to more conflict; Leviticus specifically bans queer sex but “the Sumerians actively encouraged it.” The Egyptians hated it, but “there are sporadic clues that same-sex partners lived together in ancient Egypt.”
Says Tanner, “all is not what it seems.”
So you say you’re not really into ancient history. If it’s not your thing, then “The Queer Thing About Sin” won’t be, either.
Just know that if you skip this book, you’re missing out on the kind of excitement you get from reading mythology, but what’s here is true, and a much wider view than mere folklore. Author Harry Tanner invites readers to go deep inside philosophy, religion, and ancient culture, but the information he brings is not dry. No, there are major battles brought to life here, vanquished enemies and death – but also love, acceptance, even encouragement that the citizens of yore in many societies embraced and enjoyed. Tanner explains carefully how religious credo tied in with homosexuality (or didn’t) and he brings readers up to speed through recent times.
While this is not a breezy vacation read or a curl-up-with-a-blanket kind of book, “The Queer Thing About Sin” is absolutely worth spending time with. If you’re a thinking person and can give yourself a chance to ponder, you’ll like it very much.
Theater
‘Octet’ explores the depths of digital addiction
Habits not easily shaken in Studio Theatre chamber musical
‘Octet’
Through Feb. 26
Studio Theatre
1501 14th Street, N.W.
Tickets start at $55
Studiotheatre.org
David Malloy’s “Octet” delves deep into the depths of digital addiction.
Featuring a person ensemble, this extraordinary a capella chamber musical explores the lives of recovering internet addicts whose lives have been devastated by digital dependency; sharing what’s happened and how things have changed.
Dressed in casual street clothes, the “Friends of Saul” trickle into a church all-purpose room, check their cell phones in a basket, put away the bingo tables, and arrange folding chairs into a circle. Some may stop by a side table offering cookies, tea, and coffee before taking a seat.
The show opens with “The Forest,” a haunting hymn harking back to the good old days of an analog existence before glowing screens, incessant pings and texts.
“The forest was beautiful/ My head was clean and clear/Alone without fear/ The forest was safe/ I danced like a beautiful fool / One time some time.”
Mimicking an actual step meeting, there’s a preamble. And then the honest sharing begins, complete with accounts of sober time and slips.
Eager to share, Jessica (Chelsea Williams) painfully recalls being cancelled after the video of her public meltdown went viral. Henry (Angelo Harrington II) is a gay gamer with a Candy Crush problem. Toby (Adrian Joyce) a nihilist who needs to stay off the internet sings “So anyway/ I’m doing good/ Mostly/ Limiting my time/ Mostly.”
The group’s unseen founder Saul is absent, per usual.
In his stead Paula, a welcoming woman played with quiet compassion by Tracy Lynn Olivera, leads. She and her husband no longer connect. They bring screens to bed. In a love-lost ballad, she explains: “We don’t sleep well/ My husband I/ Our circadian rhythms corrupted/ By the sallow blue glow of a screen/ Sucking souls and melatonin/ All of my dreams have been stolen.”
After too much time spent arguing with strangers on the internet, Marvin, a brainy young father played by David Toshiro Crane, encounters the voice of a God.
Ed (Jimmy Kieffer) deals with a porn addiction. Karly (Ana Marcu) avoids dating apps, a compulsion compared to her mother’s addiction to slot machines.
Malloy, who not only wrote the music but also the smart lyrics, book, and inventive vocal arrangements, brilliantly joins isolation with live harmony. It’s really something.
And helmed by David Muse, “Octet” is a precisely, quietly, yet powerfully staged production, featuring a topnotch cast who (when not taking their moment in the spotlight) use their voices to make sounds and act as a sort of Greek chorus. Mostly on stage throughout all of the 100-minute one act, they demonstrate impressive stamina and concentration.
An immersive production, “Octet” invites audience members to feel a part of the meeting. Studio’s Shargai Theatre is configured, for the first, in the round. And like the characters, patrons must also unplug. Everyone is required to have their phones locked in a small pouch (that only ushers are able to open and close), so be prepared for a wee bit of separation anxiety.
At the end of the meeting, the group surrenders somnambulantly. They know they are powerless against internet addiction. But group newbie Velma (Amelia Aguilar) isn’t entirely convinced. She remembers the good tech times.
In a bittersweet moment, she shares of an online friendship with “a girl in Sainte Marie / Just like me.”
Habits aren’t easily shaken.
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