In an echo of French MP’s Brigitte Barèges’ comparison last month of same sex marriages with “unions with animals”, the central character in The Temperamentals, Harry Hay, a lecturer and pioneering gay rights activist in 1940s’ Los Angeles, pulls in some friends to re-enact an ancient parody for his students about a man who falls in love with a turnip. The skit is intended to illustrate the ridiculousness of homophobic prejudice, but as Barèges’ comments remind us, bigotry is no laughing matter.
The play, whose three-theatre run finished in Greenwich last week, tells the little-known story of the formation and ultimate decline of the world’s first gay rights organisation. Two decades before the 1969 Stonewall riots led to the establishment of the modern gay rights movement, Hay and Rudi Gernreich, a Viennese refugee and designer set-up the Mattachine Society to campaign for gay rights. In those days, being “temperamental” – a codeword for “homosexual” – meant leading a double life: pretending to be straight to friends and colleagues or even wives and girlfriends. Indeed, in the febrile repressive climate of McCathyite America, being a “bachelor” could arouse suspicion and exposure as a homosexual could result in public shame, professional failure or even imprisonment.
Hay was the first to describe homosexuals as “a sexual minority” and he set out his vision for full emancipation in a manifesto for which he attempted to find signatories. By coming out of the shadows and increasingly their visibility, he believed homosexuals could gradually shift public attitudes. Initially Hay and Gernreich focused their effort on getting prominent figures to sign up – “In the USA, the poor can’t change things” – but after celebrities such as Vincent Minelli and Christopher Isherwood refused to add their names, the founders of the Mattachine Society realised that, rather than needing a celebrity, they needed “a cause”.
That cause came in the shape of Dale Jennings, a member of the Mattachine Society arrested for soliciting an undercover policeman in a public toilet. Pleading guilty would have resulted in a fine of up to $3,000 or a prison term, but with the support of the Mattachine Society, Jennings took the case to court where he pleaded not guilty. His claim that he had been the victim of police entrapment precisely because he was a homosexual was accepted by the jury and Jennings was acquitted. “The truth is a powerful thing”, Hay declared after the trial.The next day, Hay and Gernreich scoured the newspapers only to find that this landmark court case had got no coverage and their victory would not be the launch-pad for a national political movement after all. Nevertheless, they continued to build the organization, but over the coming years, under increasing internal and external pressures, the Mattachine Society started to fracture. Many of its members were uncomfortable with the Communist sympathies of the leadership and, in 1953, Hay and Gernreich together with two other founding members of the Society decide to step down. After their departure, the Mattachine Society continued for some years but became more “frivolous” – more of a social club rather than a movement for political change.
The degeneration of the Society is mirrored in the disintegration of the play’s central relationship: the love affair between Hay and Gernreich. Just as the movement is faced with political compromises and difficult choices, so the couple struggle to find a way to stay together. Hay eventually leaves his wife, but as Gernreich becomes more successful, he is under increasing pressure to be seen to be straight and eventually takes a job in New York.While the play loses some of the energy and pace following the court case, this is not a flaw. Instead it reflects the frustrations and loss of direction of the Mattachine Society itself.
The early part of the play captures the unique excitement of setting-up an important campaign for social justice and the process of turning vision into reality. The mix of fear and contagious courage is palpable in those early scenes just as the disappointment and heartbreak can be felt in the latter scenes. Written in 2009 by Jon Marans, this excellent production – helped by financial backing from Sir Elton John – arrived in London after performances in Hereford and Dublin. A talented cast, anchored by a strong central performance by Nicholas Cass-Beggs as Harry Hay, handle the sharp dialogue and shifts in emotional pace with skill.
After the curtain call on the final night, the cast were joined on stage for a panel discussion by Boy George, Brian Paddick and screenwriter Patrick Wilde. “It’s nice to be educated”, said Boy George admitting that this was the first he’d heard of the Mattachine Society. “I thought gay history started with Stonewall in 1969.”While the play reminds us just how much things have changed over the past 60 years, the fact remains that there is still a distance to travel. In the week that Tennessee passed a Bill prohibiting schools from the discussion or even acknowledgement of the existence of homosexuality, Brian Paddick argued that “Unless we keep up the fight, things are going to go backwards again.”
Wilde pointed out that, despite significant shifts in attitude, lingering problems lie in the hopes and expectations of others. “If there was a pill that could be taken that would guarantee that their child would be straight, most parents would still take it” he said. An audience member suggested that some gay people would also choose to take such a pill. “Not me!” said Boy George emphatically and for a moment we could see an unbroken link between two courageous trailblazers: Boy George challenging prejudices in 1980s Britain and Harry Hay facing-up to bigotry of post-war America. Hay struggled with the ease with which gay men could blend in unnoticed into straight society. He wanted his sexuality to be visible and took to wearing a magenta shawl over his suit as an emblem. “I never want to be mistaken for a heterosexual again”, Hay explains at one point – bravely choosing to confront prejudice rather than live a lie.
