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FILM
The
Day David Drake Kissed Me
By
Alan Davidson
When David Drake’s semi-autobiographical show,
The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, debuted off-Broadway
in 1992, it was such a quintessential expression of
the souls of gay men at a particular point in time that
New York Newsday exclaimed that Larry Kramer will become
to Gay Pride Day what Miracle on 34th Street is to Christmas.
Larry Kramer won the Obie Award (the off-Broadway equivalent
to the Tony Award), and became the longest-running one-man
show in the history of New York theater. • Now,
Larry Kramer has been made into a film, directed by
Tim Kirkman, produced by Filmnext. David Drake wrote
the screenplay, including a completely new final scene.
David talked to OutSmart from his home in New York City.
Alan Davidson: You’ve had great success with The
Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me. The longest running
one-man show on Off Broadway, international tours, and
now The Movie. How long have you been working with this
piece?
David Drake: Well I started writing The Night Larry
Kramer Kissed Me in the summer of 1990. So that’s
ten years ago. It debuted off Broadway in 1992 and ran
for a year. Then I continued on with it to many other
cities off and on until 1995.
As I was watching the movie, I
was struck with how astute your mind is. How brilliantly
you use words to create images. I kept thinking, this
piece is how many years old? What’s this man working
on next?
Right. That’s the big question for me. Frankly
the success of the play was a double-edged sword in
that it sort of overwhelmed me. It certainly gave me
opportunities and its popularity carried into parts
of the world I probably never would have gotten to see.
The other side of the sword was that it paralyzed me
for years in a way that I haven’t been able to
complete another work. I have a number of projects in
development. I’ve been working on a new solo piece,
which is taking a lot of research. Larry Kramer—which
was a reaction to a particular time in my life and in
gay cultural life—is about becoming a man in many
ways. This new piece I’m working on also encompasses
becoming a man. It’s a lot less political at this
stage of the game than Larry Kramer. I go to Eastern
Europe. I’ve just gotten back from Romania. It’s
political in that communism is addressed. It’s
a slow process. Unlike Larry Kramer which came
pouring out of me.
You said it’s a reaction.
It was a reaction, yes. I was pressed up against it
with the AIDS crisis. You know some of the greatest
literature, and I’m not saying my literature is
great, comes out of a time of high stakes. The literature
of WWI and many wars. At the time of Larry Kramer
there was very much a war mentality; a fighting of something
that was completely decimating this community.
Some of the literature written
by gay men in the last decade is considered some of
the finest literature of that decade. Edmund White,
Michael Cunningham...
Paul Monet and Tony Cushner. I mean, if there had not
been a threat to our very existence, the way AIDS was
and still is, although there are more ways of working
with it now. Larry Kramer’s work, so many writers
rose to the occasion, in the ’80s and the early
’90s to speak out on it in the way that they were
seeing the world. Some very comedicly, others very politically,
others romantically. But you’re not finding that
these days. Now things have calmed down in a way because
life-saving drugs have begun to change the course of
the narrative of HIV and AIDS. The Clinton Administration
moving into the White House have changed things as well.
It’s given us access in ways that we were outside
of the government and now we’re “out”
and “in” in many ways. We have to keep those
places. Don’t get me wrong, once you’re in
doesn’t mean you’re in forever. I mean you’ve
got to keep on it and that’s part of what my Larry
Kramer Kissed Me is about. You do have to keep moving
forward. And you, meaning the audience, meaning the
community, are at this moment, just by being out, that’s
a big step.
I read in the New York Times this
week that the CIA, as part of Gay Pride, had an open
celebration for their gay employees.
In the CIA?
In the CIA. And they were talking
about what a conservative institution the CIA has traditionally
been and how that is a mark of how far gays and lesbians
have come in our fight for acceptance. I agree when
you say we’ve achieved these things but we also
have to hold on to them.
Not to take them for granted; to understand that they
are earned. For those who are in the process of earning
those places in the world, of earning entrance and being
courageous and coming out in their work environment,
particularly the work environment. And home environments
too. As gays and lesbians continue to expand their definitions
of family, by having children, adopting children, living
together and all of that. They automatically come out,
you know in their communities, in their schools, on
their neighborhood boards and their co-op boards. It’s
all those things. It’s tiresome to be that out.
But they really are and I see that as really courageous.
I see that as Stonewall II, the expansion of activism.
I think in terms of being an ambassador
for gays and lesbians and it’s just how I go through
my daily life, particularly as a teacher who shares
myself as an openly gay man. How I can touch and change
the impressions of my students. You’re talking
about the ways that people come out, it’s being
an ambassador at all times, in so many ways, under tremendous
scrutiny.
But you can only really be yourself and be fully human.
Honesty and dignity, those are two of the high ups for
me. Just being true and the best you can for yourself.
To tie that into the spiritual
level for me, it’s struggling within myself at
a spiritual, emotional and psychological level that
gives me the fortitude and the integrity to go out into
the world and say, This is who I am.
Yes, I realized this and so much more in hindsight than
I did when I was consciously writing Larry Kramer
the play, which is now the film. Although I did go back
and refurbish the script and rewrite the ending, giving
it a complete overhaul at the end. I combed through
the whole text, updated jokes here and there to sharpen
it. I realized in hindsight that the wound at the core
of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me is the lonely
gay boy. That is the core pain, the core spiritual wound,
the wound of the soul that must be healed. Many of these
scenes are ways that I’m addressing healing them
or at least examining them. “12 Inch Single”
is about the late night club crawl. It’s about
“All I need is loving you and music, music, music.”
Your “Why I Go to the Gym”
and “12 Inch Single” monologues seem to be
one piece in the sense that they address the sexual
addiction issue in our community which is just now being
brought forward, addressed and healed in a significant
way.
Yet I was doing it ten years ago. That’s part of
why I was hesitant to write other things because my
final statement on the gym thing is right there, my
final statement on the club scene is right there. I
mean I’m not making a moral judgement on that.
The gym piece has got titillation because the environment
is very titillating, and I spin jokes on that. But underneath
those things are the fear of bashing, the competition
between gay men and straight men and what hovers underneath.
Again that is connected to the child who was bullied
for being a sissy, for being different, for being a
queer, for being other, not one of the pack. Little
kids can smell that with each other. To know when someone
is different.
I felt the undercurrent of violence
in those monologues.
There’s a lot of violence in the show.
It’s something that we live
with and unfortunately, in “12 Inch Single,”
you point out the violence we inflict on ourselves.
Well “Why I Go to the Gym” becomes a pulling
up of subconscious fears and subconscious anger. And
having to fight for you life. The Paris Island thing
that comes at the end emerges out of this soldier thing,
fighting enemies, fighting gay bashers. It’s more
of a subconscious emotion. I’m not propagating
to go out and bash back. Although that’s the attitude
the character seems to take. But then “12 Inch
Single” flips that. We go internal and we show
internal violence. In this search for something so tender
and so gentle, that is our birthright, our romantic
intimacy, our love gets twisted and twisted and gnarled
all the way down into what turns out to be acting out
on each other. Acting out on one’s self. That’s
where you get, partially anyway, into the drug and alcohol
abuse. I do believe that drug and alcohol abuse is genetically
inherant in people. Some people are more predisposed
to it than others. It’s just their chemical makeup.
So I can’t blame one thing. But it’s like
putting gasoline on a fire, which is internalized homophobia.
You wrote this ten years ago and
feel that it’s your final comment on the scene.
It’s an excellent exposé of that
mentality. I think another piece of the picture is how
do we transcend this internalized violence and homophobia?
I’m all for looking for transcendence too. I didn’t
give an answer to transcending it only because I was
not an indictment on it. I was trying to understand
internalized homophobia. How I was examining it in personal
ads all the time. There are sexual kinks and fetishes
involved but most of them, I noticed there was violence
involved. I found that scene to be a spiral downward.
I’ve been there, done that. I don’t really
do that anymore. It’s not because I have anything
against it; it’s like everyone’s got his or
her own journey. I’ve been down that road, so I
know, I’ve been to the bottom of that and I’m
not there now, but I understand it emotionally. And,
oh dear, I know people have to go through their own
processes. I see it happen all the time now. I see unbelievable
abuse around me. I live in Chelsea, New York City. I
just see it constantly. It’s like nothing has changed.
I think that’s really sort of human behavior. I
also think it’s part of the closet problem too.
I think it’s about energy, male energy that gets
oppressed. In “12 Inch Single” there is a
piece where I say “to the cell where they keep
the men, a holding pen.” The idea is that there
are these closets in and of themselves. All of this
energy doesn’t go outward, it goes inward. We spiral
into these little places, into these little nooks and
crannies, and in those places we go mad. Or we start
turning all that energy against ourselves. I’ve
seen a rise in that kind of behavior; certainly in the
last decade as our political and social advances have
been dashed. Broken promises and all. That energy doesn’t
know where to go and so we turn back to ourselves. That’s
a generalization, I’m making an observation.
I also see a trend among men like
ourselves who have survived to this point and have been
to the bottom of that spiral and in some way found our
own transcendence. We now have a chance to speak to
the community about our experience and what is possible
for us as men, as healthy, loving, intimate men.
It’s an ongoing process. I think the AIDS crisis
denied people like me—I am 36 now—denied me
a generation of men, hundreds of thousands of them were
wiped away. They never lived to the age of 36. For a
long time I just didn’t see anybody in the in-between
stages. I didn’t see anybody in grown-up manhood.
I saw these 20 somethings, like myself, or these guys
in their 50’s. These old men who I felt I had nothing
in common with. There were no examples of people living
their lives. What happens next, what happens after you
come out? And that’s really what The Night Larry
Kramer Kissed Me is all about. There is a coming
out story but it’s about what happens after coming
out. What are the obstacles that you face and how do
you overcome them and how was I overcoming them? How
do you deal with death? That’s very personal to
me because I mean I’ve had lot of death in my life;
as a child and a man. I have a pretty haunted soul in
that way. My mother, my grandparents and a succession
of people from the age of six years old on. My fear
of people dying and my relationship with death is a
little more haunted than I think a lot of other people.
People who relate to loss in the way that I do and appreciate
things like the vigil, in terms of being able to transcend
it and know that they are with you, you are with them,
that we are all one.
In the “Thousand Points of Light” you speak
to the little star that’s unknown. That is one
of the most poignant and beautiful things that I’ve
seen in response to the AIDS epidemic. It reminded me
of the AIDS quilt and those panels that are there, to
the unknown people who died unheralded. OutSmart just
sponsored a showing of The Times of Harvey Milk. There’s
that scene when they scan that candlelight vigil, the
night that he was killed.
That river of little flickering flames, it was one of
the inspirations of that vigil piece. I had a series
of pictures posted up on my bulletin board in front
of my desk and there was a picture from the movie of
that.
Cleve Jones says that was his
inspiration for the AIDS quilt. You say you added a
new final scene for the film.
It’s a complete rewrite. The play always concluded
with New Year’s Eve in the future. I just took
the same scene and completely rewrote it.
Your vision for the future, the
references to assassinations and people marching into
the artillery or militia and being shot for the cause
of gay liberation and the freedom that has come from
those kinds of sacrifices.
There is still violence involved in my vision. I basically
appropriated the black civil rights movement. The trajectory
of that scene is lifted directly from the “eyes
on the prize” ’60s movement. I took elements
of the Nazi war criminals from WWII, that there will
be a sort of restitution for us as a community finally;
that your enemies will be recalled and held accountable.
This just happened with that guy who bombed that Baptist
church in 1964. He finally went to jail. It takes a
long time
But karma will get you..
Karma will get you baby.
There was some violence in that last scene and I don’t
get into any really bloody details. It used to be a
little more bloody than it is now; I softened some of
that. But yes, marches on Washington are certainly a
staple of American politics in general. Civil disobedience
is part of American heritage. The Boston tea party is
the first act of civil disobedience in America and we’ve
never stopped doing it since. All groups take on those
tactics at one point or another in their movement. I
think certain things will come up. The Matthew Sheppard
Hate Crimes Bill for instance, I don’t get into
the details of that, I have a vision of what it looks
like in my mind when I acted it, but you know, it’s
sort of a coalition of people who know this. You know
the march on the Pentagon, that’s the sort of don’t
ask, don’t tell situation you know that we demand.
Honestly I think some of those things will happen in
time. I think complacency will bottom out and there
will be a resurgence of movement. Another generation
will come in and say civil unions aren’t good enough,
I want gay marriage. Someone’s gonna come and stomp
their foot and say separate but equal isn’t good
enough for me.
There was the recent demonstration
where Arun Ghandi and those 200 people were arrested
for protesting at the United Methodist Church meeting
last month.
That was ridiculous, the Methodists didn’t pass
that and the Presbyterians did
It was the first real act of civil
disobedience in this new generation and not directed
towards AIDS or politics, it’s really directed
towards the church. I thought there is something fresh
and new here.
That’s how I think we are going to get real gay
marriage over time.
Well it goes back to what Harvey
Milk said 30 years ago, you must come out, the more
people come out and are honest, the more people will
have to change their attitudes. This wave of celebrities
that have been coming out and talking about being gay
or lesbian or bisexual.
And quite a wave of politicians. It’s amazing that
they are out. I don’t politically agree with some
of them, Steve May and some of these other Republicans,
but those are separate issues about politics in general.
Is there anything in closing about
seeing Larry Kramer brought to film?
Well it has been transcendent for me to let go of it
in a way. That’s its preserved and it’s done
in a way that I am very happy with. I let it go for
a long time. I acted in other people’s plays and
wrote for the Advocate. Then the director Tim
Kirkman, he really understood it. He was emotionally
attached to it. He’d seen it several times in New
York and he had this vision on how to interpret this
stage work. In conclusion I’m really happy with
this movie version, I’m really excited about it.
I feel like it’s really come together and created
the immortal version of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed
Me.
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