The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me

David Drake presents not just a play of incredible power and honesty, but a lyrical poem of universal truth and an insightful history lesson. No, this is not your typical Aristotelian drama, but that is partially why I love it so much; the other huge reason would be Drake's challenge to the complacency and the overwhelming lack of anger in the gay community. There's plenty to be angry about for anyone -- gay, straight and in-between -- and Drake presents his rage and his humanity in a form that is accessible, moving and real. This play is a gift to anyone who loves dramas that expand the realms of possibility or who have ever felt the activist spirit churning within.

It's not a linear play in any way, not cohesive in a traditional sense. The scenes are not even comprised of sentences strung together but simply of words, images. The written text is proof that drama is meant to be performed. I know I'm missing something as I sit in the library and read along. On one hand, the play feels thin. On the other, we need a body on stage and its subsequent movements to fill in the gaps.The anger surprised me, not that I didn't expect to see anger. I just did not expect to see it in the scene that describes why gay men go to the gym, which is to fight straights and be ready for "the day we bash the bashers back / into the graves they've dug for us" (p. 42).Could the play be performed today and seen now as it was then? Since the last scene takes place on the last day of 1999--a time now in the past but in the future when Drake created the scene in 1992--it's hard to tell. Describing a world that has seen the Queer War of '96 and the assassination of Rush Limbaugh and imprisonment of Phyllis Schlafly and William Dannemeyer sounds hopeful in 1992 but more like a fairy tale in 2000.Still, I have to appreciate someone who--like me--found solace in West Side Story and A Chorus Line. And who can write, "the truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off" (p. 86).