Imagine
a film based on a dramatic reading of Allen Ginsberg’s 1955
poem Howl. Now imagine an update of Ginsberg's reading
of Howl for gays in the last third of the twentieth century
(out-of-the-closet Ginsberg died in 1997) and you have an
understanding of the favorable reception of the film The
Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, which is based on the
longest running one-man New York stage production, which debuted
Off Broadway in 1992. The film version, however, updates the
semiautobiographical poem to the year 2018. Directed by Tim
Kirkman, the dramatization by David Drake (who performed the
one-man stage reading) proceeds through seven monologues.
The dawning of gay self-awareness in Baltimore takes place
as a result of attendance at West Side Story and A
Chorus Line, at ages 8 and 16 respectively, wherein there
is a gay character who is important in establishing Drake's
sexual identity. He then moves to New York at age 22 and experiences
the joys and frustrations of gay life, in which sexual relationships
are a matter of entrepreneurship and friendships are formed
as support groups. His most important insight about gay life
occurs when he sees Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart
(1985), in which gays are urged to come out of the closet.
Perhaps the most dramatic of the monologues occurs as Drake
eulogizes some of his best friends who died from complications
of AIDS while lighting candles for each. The optimism that
ends the narration envisages a society in which gays are fully
accepted in straight society. The dramatic if overly frantic
reading, in which Drake has demonstrated the ability to play
more roles than Alec Guinness or Eddie Murphy in a single
film, a reminder of sorts that gays must indeed learn to play
multiple roles to survive amid parents, employers, other heterosexuals,
as well as in the bosom of the many diverse gay communities.
When I saw the film in West Hollywood, the audience at first
laughed cathartically, but the mood changed when AIDS entered
into the discourse, as the audience appeared to seek some
solace from the troubles of the present by embracing Drake's
new vision for the future. MH
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