Ms. Blakk for President by Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney

Abstract

Reviewed by: Ms. Blakk for President by Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney David Román MS. BLAKK FOR PRESIDENT. By Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney. Directed by Tina Landau. Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago. June 15, 2019. Ms. Blakk for President recuperates the forgotten life of Joan Jett Blakk and the communities from which this legendary Chicago drag queen emerged and thrived before their dramatic 1992 presidential run. A partnership between Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney—Steppenwolf ensemble members and longtime collaborators (Wig Out, The Brothers Size, Head of Passes)—the play focusses on Terence Alan Smith, the working-class black gay man who becomes Joan when in drag, but it also reaches further into the political culture of Chicago’s dynamic queer community. The play tells the story of Chicago’s Queer Nation and the city’s early 1990s queer club scene, of AIDS activism and drag culture, of intergenerational black queer kinship and multicultural political alliances. It is about all these things and more. Ms. Blakk for President is also much more than a play. The entire space outside Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theatre where the play was performed offered an explosively visual scene that transported audiences back into the 1990s. The lobby was transformed into a repository of Queer Nation memorabilia—posters, stickers, photographs—that allowed audience members of all backgrounds and generations to immerse themselves in the period’s radical aesthetics and [End Page 350] Click for larger view View full resolution Tarell Alvin McCraney in Steppenwolf’s world premiere of Ms. Blakk for President by Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney. (Photo: Michael Brosilow.) [End Page 351] Click for larger view View full resolution Tarell Alvin McCraney and Patrick Andrews in Steppenwolf’s world premiere of Ms. Blakk for President by Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney. (Photo: Michael Brosilow.) politics. This colorful visual splash of history also set the tone for the evening, one that was festive yet reflective, celebratory yet mindful, at once a party and an homage. The walls—including those by the bathrooms, box office, and concession stands—were covered with pop art–inspired neon posters and stickers promoting Joan Jett Blakk for president and invoking the queer activist politics of the era. The accumulation of vibrant images and slogans spoke out against the assimilationist impulses among gay people and the rigidity of the gay/straight binary. One wall of hot pink posters announced “Joan Jett Blakk for President! I Want You Honey! Lick Bush in ’92, Queer Nation Party,” replacing Uncle Sam with a fabulously cartoonish image of Blakk pointing their finger. This intense, politically defiant energy of the lobby permeated the performance space, which was transformed into a queer nightclub. As audiences entered the theatre, the party was already thoroughly underway. Dancers gyrated throughout the theatre and the pulsing beat of club music was inescapable. Raked seating was positioned on either side of a runway platform that was the main stage of action. Cabaret table seating was also available on the main floor. David Zinn’s beautifully evocative scenic design was a visual archive of queer and activist cultures, and the sense of belonging and urgency of these communities was movingly embodied by a generation of younger actors who brought this lost history to life. The dancers, it turned out, were the actual cast and unbeknown to us, were already in character, at least partially. Each of the actors in the ensemble played multiple roles, but this first encounter at the club seemed as if the actors were very closely aligned with who they were outside of the theatre. One actor, in fact, Molly Brennan, the only woman in the cast, uneventfully walked into the theatre from the lobby during the dance prologue, nearly unseen by the audience, to write the name of someone who had died of HIV/ AIDS on one of the dozens of stars drawn on two sides of the space’s walls. Performing this ritual every night of the run, she selected the name from a list submitted earlier by the audience (one of the many interactive projects available in the lobby) to build an unassuming tribute to the dead. Brennan’s AIDS memorial...