Queen of The Night
Queen of The Night Struggles to Hit on vital points but misses the mark regarding main message
Queen of The Night struggles with hitting its central message of love and acceptance.
Love and acceptance are two words that we all universally seek throughout our lives. These powerful words can help us move mountains or feel like the world's weight is on our shoulders. However, changing the perspective of these words can alter our lives, causing us to feel lost, wondering if we fit in at all.
Finally, after two years and over 700 days of a dark stage, Victory Gardens Theater opens its 2021/2022 season with the debut of Queen of the Night. Written by Travis Tate, a queer, black playwright, and directed by Artistic Director Ken-Matt Martin. It's a story about the love and acceptance needed and unfortunately not given to the young boy searching for his identity and his father's approval. And a father, glimpsing back into his past, searching for answers for what went wrong..
A divorced father trying to regain his son Ty's love decides the best way to redevelop their relationship is by reliving the days they once went camping. Ty reluctantly accepts his father's offer but seeks a more upscale adventure called "Glamping," outdoor camping with amenities and comforts, not the rugged old-style tent and campfire. But camping is where his father, Stephen, felt the most at peace. Through the aid of his psychiatrist, who is helping him cope with his ex-wife who is getting re-married, losing his job, and his feelings that he has lost contact with his sons, Stephen desperately wants to understand Ty and his new life, who is queer.
Ty is battling with issues of being accepted by his father and the fear of understanding if the men he is attracted to find him attractive. As they journey to the woods, one will discover that his little Ty Ty is not a child anymore, and one will find that he never really lost his father's love.
Queen of the night's intimate scope into the shattered relationship between a father and his son provides a potent message of love and acceptance from others, and learning to accept ourselves is captivating. However, black fathers still struggle with accepting their sons being gay, fearing that they will oppose two adversities; being black and gay. Having issues of his own and generational differences, Ty and Stephen are worlds apart in their views of masculinity and queerness in a man.
Terry Guest is exceptional as Ty, the queer son seeking his father's love and acceptance. There is one scene where he discusses his trepidation of meeting and understanding the men he meets, how they feel about him, and how the hatred he receives from others has him contemplating if he wants to live within this hate, will have you in tears. Let's Play has admired the acting performance of André Teamer since he saw him in "The Trial of Moses Fleetwood Walker." Teamer is great as the awkward father, stoically trying to understand his gay son, hoping not to lose the last of his family. Guest and Teamer genuinely seem like a father and son, trying to work out their generational gap of the old man philosophy of masculinity vs. the new alternative society of men that rejects traditional categories of gender and sexuality.
Queen of the Night, which runs 85 minutes, spends most of that time getting us familiar with the personality and mannerisms of Ty being queer and his father's disconnection from other family members. Unfortunately, it was a missed opportunity to focus on the main reason they went camping, which seems to go off course from its central message.
We learn about the father going bird watching, a bear approaching the campsite, and even the father wanting to go fishing, which was his way to connect with his son, but as Clara Peller would say, "Where's the beef." Nothing seemed to click. We only get to uncover the actual scope of Ty and his father's issues in the last twenty minutes. The distance, loneliness, need for acceptance, and eventual hatred Ty felt for his father for not receiving the love he needed as a child would have been a compelling message captivating in the audience's mind if revealed earlier within the play. Instead, I felt confused by what the play was trying to express for the first hour. It hinted and slowly crept into the central theme but again detoured off subject, trying to contact other family members, not on stage into the storyline, delaying why Ty and Stephen's father needed the camping trip.
Homosexuality in the United States, though accepted publicly, is still privately many choose to avoid. Living life in the LGBTQ community can be difficult; however, in the African-American household, a male who is gay is a difficult pill to swallow. In addition, homonegativity stigma within black communities has caused many to go into depression, social isolation, and sadly suicide.
Queen of the Night touches on this subject, graciously trying to peel back the onion to continuously show that hatred against different people is never the right course of action. I admire the playwright's desire to help the audience see others as they are, without prejudice. I only wished they would have hit the pavement running with his play instead of gradually allowing us to see Ty, a gay young man struggling how others saw him and how he saw himself.
That and his father's struggles with Ty should have dominated the night. But, unfortunately, it missed the mark.
Let's Play Somewhat Recommend Queen of the Night to Victory Gardens Theater.
Victory Gardens
Queen of the Night
Written by Travis Tate
Directed by Ken-Matt Martin
Jan 29-Mar 13, 2022
