Confession time: I am a huge theatre geek. So much so that I recite monologues from my favorite plays for fun. Given this, the odds that I WOULDN'T enjoy a one-person play are very slim, but I have friends who didn't enjoy the experience of watching this play, so that tells me it's not for everyone...if the idea of watching a one-person play gives you hives, and thus when I jump up on the rooftops and scream "GO SEE THIS PLAY IMMEDIATELY" into your window you are reluctant to take my advice because you HATE plays, keep in mind that I have a bias here and you might not like it. After all, if you don't want to see this play for yourself, you can just read my excellent, informative review instead, and we'll both be happy. Seriously though, this play is an experience, and it's one that I think everyone who is interested in the subject matter should seek out.

So what's the play about? Jeffrey Barnes, the playwright and star, toyed with the idea of going back in time and meeting his younger self, wondering what his younger self would think of the man he later became. That idea alone is intriguing enough to me, since time travel has always interested me, but that's not all. The play also tackles Jeffery's past experiences growing up in a strict Pentecostal church, and since I too grew up in a strict Pentecostal church, the play appealed to me right away for that reason too. Furthermore, since I saw the play while attending MBLGTACC 2009 (a GLBT EVERY OTHER FUCKING LETTER OF THE ALPHABET conference) I figured that at some point, the play would cross the issues of religion and sexuality, and you, my faithful readers, know that I can't resist these topics, so I was sold on the idea of the play right from the beginning. I expected to enjoy myself. What I didn't expect was to be blindsided with emotion and cry throughout practically the entire play (more about that later).

Jeffrey Barnes is pretty unassuming. He's not intimidating like a lot of Christian speakers, and he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt like an everyday guy, which apparently surprised some people and prompted an audience member a few aisles away from me to remark "Wow, he looks like a regular guy, he's not dressed in pink or anything." This distracted me with rage until I climbed over the aisles and slit that guy's throat with my pen, after which I was able to sit down again and resume taking notes. Or rather, that was the plan until the play continued and I sat staring straight ahead of me, as if paralyzed. I found myself trapped in one of those Twilight Zone moments where you feel like a movie or play is reading your mind and speaking your thoughts aloud, and I'll admit it, this freaked me out a little.

When Barnes talks about growing up being the nerdy geek, the one everyone picks on and assumes is gay, that resonated with me because I'd experienced the same thing. His tales of growing up in a close family brought back my own memories of running around with my cousins playing hide-and-seek, and when these childhood experiences shifted to stories of being teased in school, this triggered my own memories of running away from groups of kids who hurled stones and insults at me. When he talked about praying and begging God to change him, I remember what that was like. When Barnes lay on the floor of the auditorium, recounting the night he kissed his first boyfriend (a moment that had all of us on the edge of our seats in anticipation) I recalled what it was like for me the time I kissed my first girlfriend, and when he said that it had been a wonderful night until he woke up the next morning sure he was going to hell, I knew exactly how that felt. It takes a good storyteller to reel the audience in the way he did, and it might not have affected everyone the way it did me, but he had me hook, line, and sinker. When he did the "audience participation" part of the play where he stood at the front of the auditorium and read from a list of words, he said that if we've been called one of the words or thought about calling someone else that word, we need to raise one hand, second word, we need to raise the other hand, and with the third word, we need to stand up. By the end of the exercise, nearly everyone was standing with their hands raised. We looked silly, but at the same time, it was powerful to realize that we weren't alone.

After the play, I couldn't quite articulate to my friends why it had affected me so badly, but standing outside the auditorium waiting for the second performance of the day to begin, planning to watch it again like some kind of freaky stalker, a realization hit me right in the face like a brick. See, I'd been milling around, thinking how if I had the chance to go back in time and meet my younger self, I'd spend my time beating the shit out of her and thus wouldn't gain anything from the experience. After this, I thought about a friend of mine who'd recently committed suicide, and I wished he could have seen the play with me, and then I actually said aloud, "I wish I could go back in time and tell him..." then I stopped talking to myself like a creepy psycho in mid-sentence, because there it was, the reason I'd been crying so hard throughout the play. In a weird way, I realized I was being given a rare gift: the sudden knowledge that I'm not alone, that other people have gone through the things I'm going through, and that if they're surviving somehow, that means that I can survive, too, even though my friend didn't make it.

Remember that aforementioned scene where Barnes tells us the story of kissing his first boyfriend? He says something there that is pretty radical, at least for those of us in God's fan club. He said that the kiss felt natural, and that he realized this was because it was motivated by love. Here's where he'd get burned at the stake (and I'd get burned right up there next to him for agreeing with him) because it's not natural, right? And it's not love, right? It's an evil abomination that's going to send us to hell, right? The truth is, I've heard every bible verse on this topic, I've read them over and over until my eyes bled, and I've heard every argument on this issue. I know it inside out, and I'm not sure that hearing any more scholarly interpretations is going to affect me much. Hearing of someone who struggled and came out on the other side? Someone who didn't want to argue with us or throw bible verses at us, someone who just wanted to share his story with us? Barnes said that when he prayed for years for God to change him and nothing happened, he thought God wasn't answering his prayers. It wasn't until later that he realized that his prayers were answered in a different way...God loved him, God made him the way he was for a reason, and he needed to learn to accept himself. That was powerful. That's something my past churches would call giving in to sin. I can hear them sharpening the stakes right now.

There's a resurgence of interest in evangelical Christianity hitting our world recently. There are a lot of contemporary writers who cast Christianity in an overly poetic light, talking about God in ways that the "young people of today" will find relevant. A lot of these modern day preachers use pop culture references, non-Christian music and movies. In a way, these modern-day images are just another manipulation to me, because I've been struggling with thinking God hates me for a zillion different reasons since I was four years old.  The problem is that as well-meaning as these "new evangelicals" are and as tolerant as they try to be, they're not saying anything new.

Telling me that God can love me even if I don't fit the mold?  Telling me I don't have to change? That is new, and it's something I honestly don't know if I can believe yet. I don't know if I dare to even try to believe that everything I've been taught my whole life is wrong. What I do know is that the gospel isn't the "good news" for me if I'm not in it, and I've never heard the gospel presented this way, without a barrage of bible verses beating me into submission, and I have to say...I liked it. Against my better judgment, I almost feel like somehow, someday, things might be ok. I remember playing hide and seek, and I remember what "getting warmer" used to mean, and this is what it feels like. For that, I'm grateful to this play and its writer, because it might just be exactly what I needed to hear. This play made me think. Aren't you the lucky readers?! If these issues interest you, I advise you to see it, too.