Lakeside Little Theatre to Present Poignant Play
“The story consumed me,” explained poet, author, actress and playwright Carol Lynn Pearson.
On June 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, some friends and I will bring Pearson’s story, the acclaimed play Facing East, to the Lakeside Little Theatre. Our one-act production performed on the theatre’s mainstage (lasting one hour and fifteen minutes) will honor Gay Pride Month and raise funds for the local AIDS group, Ajijic Cares.
“Lights come up. A cemetery. An unfilled grave. A Mormon mother who is relieved that her gay son who killed himself is now free from sin and safe with God. A father who realizes that he never knew his son and insists on conducting another funeral. The partner of their son, whom they chose not to meet, unexpectedly shows up at the graveside. What would they say to each other? Would there be any surprises, any insights into this awful event – for them?—for us? As a playwright and a person deeply committed to these issues, I wanted to know,” mused Pearson. “I listened. Soon the three characters began to speak to me. And before long, they had a story in Facing East.”
How had Pearson, a fourth generation Latter Day Saint, become so committed to the persistent polemic between conservative religions and homosexuality? She’d married Gerald, a gay man. “Gerald shone. That’s the best way I can describe him,” she explained. “He shone.” Church elders had convinced them that their faith would cure him of his homosexuality. But, twelve years and four children later, Gerald finally acknowledged that religion had not produced the promised miracle.
Divorce initially devastated Pearson. Time, prayer, and her enduring love for Gerald eventually healed her soul; and, when she later learned that he was dying of AIDS, she invited him back into her home to care for him until his death. Afterward, in 1987, she wrote the bitter-sweet Goodbye, I Love You about their life together. (Pearson eventually published more than 40 books and theatrical works.)
In 2006, Pearson’s play Facing East premiered in Salt Lake City. Despite confronting Mormonism’s condemnation of homosexuality head-on, the play won the Church-owned Deseret Morning News’ award for Best Drama because it so tenderly and respectfully portrayed a Mormon couple’s torment and grief. The Salt Lake Tribune praised the work as well: “A tightly-wound domestic tragedy…freshly relevant…dares to ask important questions about faith, death and survival.” Variety asserted, “[Facing East] resembles the last scenes of a Greek tragedy, a vivid rumination on grief, regret and shame…. [There is] near-sacred stillness and elegance in this lament….”
I attended a production of Facing East in San Francisco three years later; and, as with Pearson, “the story consumed me.” You see, I, a devout Catholic at the time, had finally come out of the closet, and so found the play’s edgy themes riveting. However, it was witnessing each of the characters finally find redemption that captivated me most.
Indeed, “Whoever is in charge of all this,” Pearson wrote at the end of Goodbye, I Love You, “will walk with us, and will help us to sort out the mysteries and…complete the healing. Walls will fall and we will see each other more clearly – all of us, the Mormons and the Catholics and the Jews and the Muslims and the straights and the gays and the women and the men. Confusions will lift like fog lifts from the Golden Gate Bridge on a good summer day, and we will each see our next step and will take it.”
“You can fly now, Gerald,” Pearson whispered right after he’d let go of his last breath. “Oh, Gerald, now you can fly!”
In the final, transcendent moments of her play, Facing East, her characters and the audience fly tearfully together, too.
Come to the play – as apt and poignant today as ever – be consumed by the story and fly with us.
Reserved-seat tickets ($350 pesos) available at lakesidelittletheatre.com for Friday, June 21st, 7pm; Saturday June 22nd, 4pm; and Sunday June 23rd, 4pm. Directed by Collette Clavadetscher, Facing East will feature Debra Bowers and David Ellison.
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