Queen of the Night is Luna’s Spring production and it is right on time. Opening on the eve of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, travis tate’s exploration of “what happens when you’re working toward getting to the middle, moving closer toward understanding of a person your love”. This situation is sufficiently complicated on its own, but when you add that Ty is queer and he is camping with his father then you have another layer. Icing on the cake?
They are in the middle of the woods on the eve of Ty’s mother’s marriage to another man. Ty is so far out of his comfort zone, he may as well be on the moon. When we meet Ty, he is exploring the campsite his father has selected and is initially unimpressed with what Mother Nature has done with this part of Texas. And thus, the adventure begins.
The action of the play takes place across a long weekend and includes all the modern tropes and trappings of family and classic literary conflict – queer vs not, technology vs not, post-processing of birth to present life on both sides and how do we speak to one another now that we’re adults and our relationship balances have changed? The frictive sparks of periodic anger from Stephen, Ty’s dad, could start the campfire on their own and this one-act play is a literature class and a master class in acting in one conflicted and beautiful gift. This is a tale of urban men in the deep woods testing their mettle in all types of conflict and like Kintsugi, the Japanese art of embracing and highlighting the flaws that have broken an object where the repair strengthens the former damage, our disappointments, pain and sadness make us more strong and beautiful when we prevail. There is a nearly tangible wall between Ty and Stephen when the weekend begins, but what could have remained as bricks gradually becomes permeable and we see the golden joinery upon which we build our lives.
There are flora and fauna throughout and I can hardly “bear” to hold back some of the details. Playwright travis tate has written a play that touches the soul of everyone within its grasp, see it now. The day I attended, I got an extra gift – a talkback with the playwright and actors moderated by Luna Board Member Lisa Marie Bronson. Ka-BOOM! What. A. Day.
Special highlights for me in Adrian Baidoo’s Ty include his beautiful singing voice that burbles up from Ty as if music is like water in the stream that carries him along. Ty is pensive, manages to control his addiction to his phone, that he has specially outfitted for the trip to the Texas interior, and has so much love within that he is buoyant with it. He is fae and ephemeral. Roy Jackson’s Stephen feels like Atlas, bearing the weight of the world – dreading the conversation he and Ty are always on the brink of having even while his primary goal is to show his son how very much he loves him. They are climbing different sides of the same mountain, only to realize how close they are only when they meet at the summit. And the journey is more than half the fun.
Lace up those hikers, and maybe bring a hankie, and trek on down to Luna Stage now. You only have until June 9, so giddyup! Here’s the link: https://www.lunastage.org/queen.