ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: ‘THAT WASN’T JUST A PARTY:’ RECONSIDERING THE PLAYS OF ROBERT CHESLEY Rebecca Lynn Gavrila, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Dissertation Directed by: Dr. Faedra Chatard Carpenter School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies “That Wasn’t Just A Party: Reconsidering The Plays of Robert Chesley” is a reclamation project that is placing Robert Chesley as a significant voice of Gay and Sexual Liberation in the Post-Stonewall gay theatrical canon. As the majority of his plays were both unproduced and unpublished, this project serves to introduce a contemporary, mainstream audience to the dramatic writings of Robert Chesley. Chesley is best known for writing the first full-length AIDS play to be produced in the United States, Night Sweats. Unlike his contemporaries, Larry Kramer and William Hoffman, Chesley never saw his work cross-over into the commercial mainstream in part because of his commitment to staging graphic gay sex scenes. Sadly, Robert Chesley would become a victim of the AIDS crisis, dying in 1990. The political and artistic ideologies represented by Chesley’s works are currently under-acknowledged within the gay American theatre canon. By exploring Robert Chesley and the way his work addressed the ideals of Sexual Liberation I am contributing to the discourse of gay cultural criticism and gay theatre history. The current gay theatre canon lacks a figure that represented this political ideology within his theatrical texts. ‘THAT WASN’T JUST A PARTY:’ RECONSIDERING THE PLAYS OF ROBERT CHESLEY By Rebecca Lynn Gavrila Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Advisory Committee: Dr. Faedra C. Carpenter, Chair Dr. Nancy L. Struna Dr. Esther Kim Lee Dr. Korey Rothman Dr. Katherine King © Copyright by Rebecca Lynn Gavrila 2014 ii Table of Contents Table of Contents………………………………………………………………..ii Acknowledgements…………................................................................................iii Introduction: “The Thing You Need To Know Is, It’s All About Sex.” Introduction……………………………………………………………………….1 Theoretical Frame………………………………………………………………...5 Literature Review………………………………………………………………. 11 Gay Theatrical Canon and Chesley’s Contemporaries……………...………….. 13 Limitations……………………………………………………………………… 39 Chapter Summaries………………………………………………………………40 Chapter One: “Fags Are No Different Than People. Tell Them They Can't Have Something and It's All They Want:” The Liberation of Robert Chesley The Artist Comes of Age and a Movement is Born………....………………….. 43 Chesley’s Early Years………………………………………………….………....55 Out of the Closet: A Liberated Robert Chesley…………………….……….........79 Conflicting Views: Robert Chesley vs. Larry Kramer…………….……………...86 Chapter Two: “I'm a cocksucker! I'm queer! And to Anyone Who Takes Pity or Offense, I Say, Judge Yourself:” Robert Chesley’s Celebration of Gay Sexual Culture The Cultures of Place and Space: Bathhouses, Sex Clubs, and Jerk-Off Clubs….. 103 A Dream Deferred: AIDS in San Francisco and Its Impact on the Spaces of Sexual Liberation ………………………………. 116 The Bathhouse Debates…………………………………………………………….123 Robert Chesley’s Sexually Liberated Theatre…………….……………...……….. 133 Giving Each Other a Hand: J/O Clubs and Jerker………….………………............139 Memories of Clubs and Clones in Come Again………………………….…………142 Pig Man: Gay Sexual Culture and the Absence of Liberated Space………………. 147 Chapter Three: “No Apologies, No Regrets:” Robert Chesley as an AIDS Artist……………………………………………………………………………….160 Coda: “Where’s the Fucking and Where’s the Sucking?” Hard-Core Theatre, Queer as Folk, and Reviving Robert Chesley…………………………………………...199 iii Appendix……………………………………….………………………………...218 Archive Information………………….…….………………………….………..297 Bibliography……………………..………………………………………………299 iv Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the unwavering support of Dr. Faedra Carpenter. She made me a better writer and for that I will be forever grateful. This was a long, and often frustrating, process but Dr. Faedra never gave up on me and never stopped pushing me. I have to thank my committee members—they turned a stressful defense into a fantastic conversation. Dr. Korey Rothman brought her incredible knowledge of the subject matter and provided excellent feedback on multiple drafts. Dr. Nancy Struna also gave her time and her insight at various points through this process. Dr. Esther Kim Lee stepped in towards the end of this process and not only did she embrace this project and provide fantastic ideas, but she gave her time to a graduate student she did not even know. And, finally, Dr. Katie King—I was humbled to have you on my committee and I consider the time I spent with you, in class and in the defense, as a highlight of my academic career. Though not on my committee, per say, I have to give a special shout-out to Stephanie Bergwall who helped me navigate the red tape and minutiae of the graduate school and who was a source of calm when I was pulling my hair out. I found a wonderful community in the GLBT cohort at the Pop Culture Association and they were a wonderful audience through many versions of chapters. Dr. Bruce Drushel believed in this project when I first started talking about Robert Chesley years ago and his suggestion, “have you thought of publishing an anthology?” has set the stage for the second act of this project. Dr. Brian M. Peters, my Canadian imp, has become a wonderful friend as well as a cheerleader for me to complete this project and get that degree. Whenever I see him I know I will think critically and have fun—he is the reason I need In Private browsing on my phone. A funny thing happened after I became a doctoral candidate—I had to get a job and I ended up finding a career. I have to thank the incredible team members, and clients, I have met in my various Regus centers. Everyone I have met has supported my grad school life—and whose constant question of “how’s the writing going?” was often what kick-started my inspiration or reminded me to stop procrastinating. I have to thank Beth Ball, Vivian Ham, LaTonya Hardy, Ricketta ‘Pita-Pocket’ Payne, Alie Meek, Matt Johnson, Caroline Peyton, Karen Symos, Colleen Stanley, Wendy Soroka, Cassie Eckenrode, Orville Liddie, and Nicole McClain. Nicole, and former client/fellow bad girl Nicole DeLuca, have become wonderful friends and supporters in this last stretch. I would not have been able to do this without my family. When things were tough or things were wonderful, they were there. During this process I gained a niece whose squishes became a reward for finishing chapters. I owe everything to my mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, and niece—because they promised to love me no matter what. Finally, I have to recognize the most important figure in this process—Robert Chesley. I am a fan of Inside the Actor’s Studio and at the end of each episode the guest is asked: “If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly v gates?” My answer: “Robert Chesley has a table and bottle of Pinot Noir and girl, does he have some stories for you! 1 Introduction The Thing You Need To Know Is, It’s All About Sex Introduction Years ago, when I was a Masters student, I was chatting about gay theater and popular culture with a friend. He mentioned a play that was full of “in your face” sex—he thought it was “right up my’ alley.” I asked for the title: "It's called Night Sweats and it’s by this guy named Robert Chesley." I had never heard of this writer, but I ordered a copy of the play and was stunned upon reading it. Night Sweats was unlike any play I had ever read. I was in the midst of writing my thesis on Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart and, to me, Night Sweats was everything that Kramer’s play was not. Chesley’s text was funny, heartbreaking without being manipulative, and incredibly explicit—it included mutual masturbation, oral sex, and anal sex in the stage directions. I then read one of Chesley’s other plays, Jerker. Like Night Sweats, Jerker also placed gay sex front and center. I continued my reading with The Dog Plays, powerfully sad AIDS plays that still retained the element of the sensual. Then I hit a wall—there were no more plays that I could find via Internet searches or through Inter-Library loan. Even the literature exploring the gay male theatrical canon barely mentioned Chesley. While he was afforded some minor mention as the author of the first full-length AIDS play produced in the U.S. (Night Sweats), he was a background figure compared to his peers, Larry Kramer and William Hoffman. Were these three plays—Night Sweats, Jerker, and The Dog Plays—the sum total of Chesley’s playwriting career? Why was there so little discussion of his staging of gay sex—a shocking device—considering that he was writing in the early 1980s? 2 There had to be more to Robert Chesley—and there was. Through a Google search I discovered that a foundation had been established in Chesley’s memory. The foundation’s website included a complete list of plays written by Chesley and, to my surprise, there were nearly thirty plays listed. Victor Bumbalo was listed as the main point of contact for the foundation and I reached out to him via e-mail. Thankfully, he responded and was generous enough to send me a list of the items that had been archived following Chesley’s death. All of Chesley’s plays, journals, and other writings had been archived in the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Historical Society. I went to San Francisco, sat in the Historical Society’s reading room surrounded by boxes, reading plays that had never been published and most had never been performed.