Folks who are coming out now, often in their teens, do not have any idea of what it was like to come out in the Dark Ages.  Nope, not the 1980s when hair was high and the Moral Majority was, well, neither. We’re talking move over, June Cleaver.  You’ve got some company! 
Merril Mushroom (a nom de plume) wrote the pulp-novel-come-to-life play “Bar Dykes” in the 1980s.  Haven’t heard of it?  You’ll wonder why not when you see it–it’s a heaping helping of what it was like to be a lesbian identified woman in the time before Title IX.  Yes, the Dark Ages. And in this bar, it takes all kinds to make a community.  You’ve got the proprietor of the bar, Bo (Moira Stone), whom you know has pretty much seen it all.  She’s got a sense of fun and a piercing eye that misses little and wears the mantle of her authority like ermine robes. When the play opens, it’s just Bo and Lorraine (Brooke M. Haney), who is keeping to herself with a crossword puzzle and a VO and ginger ale.  Confidently, she sits with her back to the bar and to the door over her shoulder.  Clearly, she’s not worried about company.  She’s not quite comfortable, but then she’s the New Girl—for now.
Bit by bit, the regulars start to amble in–Rusty (Jeanette Villafane), the butch hail-fellow-well- met soul, who wears her broken heart on her sleeve and has the constancy of a weather vane, and Cynthia (Azalea Lewis), whose reputation as a kiki girl sometimes gets her in trouble.  In the 1930s, “kiki” was first used to describe a versatile gay man–top or bottom, all good.  By the 1940s and into the 1950s, this term was extended to lesbians like Cynthia who knew a good thing when she saw it.  Top or bottom?  Yes!  Along with the regulars, new women show up, too.  When friends Elaine (Amy Bizjak), Sherry (Uré Egbuho), and Trick (Alex Guhde) find the bar, these Chi-town girls find Bo is on the spot to check IDs.  This trio is in for the night of their young lives, all for different reasons.
This is “Gays of our Lives,” the “Beebo Brinker” edition.  It wouldn’t be pulp come to life if there wasn’t angst.  Rusty’s girl has left her, so she makes a play for Lorraine.  Joyce (Emily Verla) is living the 50s lesbian nightmare–her ex outed her to her mother.  Bette (Angie Tennant) and Andy (Kimberly Singh) are the proto new couple–Bette is butch on the streets, but--SPOILER ALERT—Andy is butch in the sheets.  Let’s hope THAT doesn’t get out!  Oh, wait–in classic lesbian style, someone’s new squeeze is someone else’s ex and Joyce is Bette’s.  And Joyce is drunk.  It’s like using kerosene to put out a fire and its pure good fun!
Classic cool, Linda (Kiebpoli Calnek) is footloose and fancy free.  She casts her gaze on young Sherry and makes sure she’s femme—SPOILER ALERT: she’s kiki!—before she weaves her web of seduction.  We watch these Bar Dykes get together, break up, make up, do one another wrong, and make each other strong.  Bo presides over it all and, even when John Law comes to call (Scott Brieden and Nicky Maindireatta), she handles it the way they did back then, paying them off—then making a call to her inside man at the po-po.  This is a slice of life, à la mode and you’ve got to see it.
Outside in the lobby, be sure to splurge and buy a bottle of wine.  You’re going to spend the next hour or so inside a bar and you’ll want to be part of the ensemble.  This is immersive seating and for those who haven’t read Ann Bannon or Claire Morgan, this is a historical experience as well.
TOSOS, The Other Side of Silence, is New York City’s oldest and longest producing LGBTQ+ theatre company, founded in 1974.  Doric Wilson, Billy Blackwell, and Peter del Valle saw a need for LGBTQ+ voices to be heard.  Directors Virginia Baeta and Mark Finley have given us time-travel in the heart of TriBeCa.  “Bar Dykes” runs only through August 3rd, at the Flea theatre, so get your tickets NOW!  See this show, and experience life in a time more confining and complicated.  Know that we stand on the shoulders of giants, and those giants are “Bar Dykes.”  Get your tickets at http://theflea.org/for-audiences.