Arts :: Theater
Edge of your seats by Max Gelber
Bay Windows ContributorWednesday Oct 22, 2008Now in its 17th year, The Theater Offensive’s Out On The Edge festival is continuing the group’s main mission: to spread theater focused on queer culture at the local level, while simultaneously bringing Boston’s LGBT theater scene recognition on a national scale.
The Theater Offensive began Out On The Edge in 1992, with the intent of putting the city of Boston on the map for queer theater with the scope and scale of a national festival. The organization itself is an even older institution in Boston; it was founded in 1989 and is gifted with a storied history that focuses on the development and production of festivals and individual productions of national and Boston-based LGBT performers.
"There was so much great work out there, we just wanted to collect it together and make sure that Boston was on the map," said Abe Rybeck, founding artistic director of The Theater Offensive.
Rybeck describes the festival as a way to show off the strong and creative talents brewing within the city, and also as a means to showcase the evolving nature of society through the lens of the LGBT community.
"It’s...a chance for us to say, ’Hey, everybody else: We have something to contribute to the civic dialogue in this city,’" Rybeck explained.
While Rybeck adds that the festival does not necessarily focus on works centered around political agendas, he states that the nature of theater itself sometimes makes such works necessary.
"We don’t program the festival with... ’Oh, we need something from column A, B, about this or about that,’" says Rybeck. "We look for the most exciting work that’s out there... By our values, a lot of that is going to deal with subject matter that is most important to people right now. The world is in such a crisis and theater is so important to provide responses to that, to bring people together and deal with these issues."
"[We want] to make sure that folks here in Boston... take part in the theater we are presenting. Not to just be a voyeur, and not just to have shows come in, leave, and have minimal impact." One of this year’s main stage shows is a production of Miss America starring Split Britches’ Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver. The piece serves as an exposé on what America has come to lose by exacting what the show’s description refers to as "desperate triumphalism." The show examines this quest’s affect on the American Dream, and Rybeck described the piece as "a really stinging appraisal of where America is in the world right now."
Another show, Wake The F**k Up America, is a tongue in cheek satire of television morning news performed by the legendary a capella ensemble The Kinsey Sicks.
All this is not to say the festival’s line-up of productions is only full of deep, sardonic looks at the world today. Rybeck also heavily emphasized the need to show works that "have fun, and [bring] some relief [to] some of the problems that are crushing some of our lives."
There will certainly be fun had at one of the most anticipated main stage productions this year: Varla Jean Merman Loves A Foreign Tongue, which marks the drag performer’s Boston return.
A new addition to this year’s festival is the Festival Institute pilot program, an initiative that hopes to continue The Theater Offensive’s objective of nurturing new talent by engaging both the artists and the audiences in post-show discussions.
"We want to follow through with our commitment," said Rybeck of how the discussion element feeds into The Theater Offensive’s overall mission. "[We want] to make sure that folks here in Boston... take part in the theater we are presenting. Not to just be a voyeur, and not just to have shows come in, leave, and have minimal impact."
"We want to change your life," he said.
The Theater Offensive presents Out on the Edge 17th Annual Queer Theater Festival through November 8. See our accompanying calendar for highlights, but be sure to check out the full line-up and purchase tickets at thetheateroffensive.org.
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